Mixed news for language graduates in the West Midlands
Recent statistics published by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, paints a mixed picture for the employment prospects of West Midlands language graduates.
On the plus side they are eminently employable. With only 5.1% of language graduates unemployed a year after graduation, they can consider themselves fortunate compared to more traditional areas of study such as English (5.4%) and Maths (5.9%), confirming the well-established view that languages should be considered a vocational rather than an academic subject. Further evidence to support this comes from the fact that almost half of these language graduates elected to pursue a joint honours degree with subjects as diverse as Business Studies, Classics and Law.
However, the concern for our region is that although the statistics show how readily language skilled graduates can find employment, they also demonstrate that they are not finding that employment in the West Midlands. As the chart below shows, through our regional universities Aston, Birmingham, Coventry, Keele and Warwick, we are producing a very healthy 7.9% of the nation’s language graduates, almost exactly in line with the region’s share of UK exports. But we are finding employment for only 4.9% - a net migration of around 300 language graduates a year.
COMPARISON OF THE % OF UK LANGUAGE GRADUATES
PRODUCED AND EMPLOYED BY REGION
Admittedly the pattern of losing language graduates to London and overseas is fairly common with only the East bucking the trend and employing more graduate linguists than it trains. However, the West Midlands enjoys the dubious honour of being second only to Yorkshire and Humberside in the percentage of its future international managers it loses immediately following graduation. Unless this trend can be arrested and reversed it bodes ill for the future of the region’s international competitiveness.
Further information can be obtained by downloading Languages and Employablity: An overview of statistical data for 2003 HE language graduates (pdf 114KB), an analysis carried out by CILT, the National Centre for Languages.
Back to RLN News