Demand for Bilingual Workers Increasing in Maryland

As employers strive to increase their competitiveness in the global economy, they are increasingly seeking candidates who have the language skills necessary to communicate with a diverse customer base, and with operations and competitors overseas. New analysis of Burning Glass data explores the growing demand for bilingual talent in Maryland from some of the state’s biggest industries and employers, and highlights the need to attract and promote language diversity in Maryland’s workforce among both foreign- and U.S.-born workers.

Every day, Burning Glass collects data from almost 40,000 sources, mining and coding data from each posting. To obtain data on bilingual and foreign language requirements in Maryland, PNAE used key-word text searches (for example: “Bilingual,” and “Spanish”) to mine job postings by year, occupation (group), employer, and industry.

Key findings include:

• There is increasing demand from Maryland employers for candidates who speak world languages. Between 2010 and 2014, online job postings in Maryland for bilingual candidates more than doubled, from 1,781 to 3,694 postings. Employer demand for candidates who speak Spanish also doubled, from 2,528 online job postings to 5,485.
• In 2014, jobs for bilingual workers represented at least one in 10 online job postings at some of Maryland’s top employers. In 2014, jobs for bilingual workers represented more than one in five job postings at Bank of America (41.4%) and M&T Bank (28%), and more than 10 percent of job postings at AT&T (10.2%).
• Between 2010 and 2014 postings for bilingual candidates nearly doubled in several key industries, and grew by at least 30 percent in several others, including: General Medical and Surgical Hospitals (increased by 78.2%); Business Support Systems (increased by 83%); Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (increased by 52.3%); Insurance Carriers (increased by 50%); Grocery and Related Product Merchant Wholesalers (increased by 42.3%); Automotive Parts, Accessories, and Tire Stores (increased by 62%)

This data was accessed in March 2016.