The multinational interpreting and translation company, thebigword, plans to create up to 3,000 more jobs for linguists this year.
The company’s expansion within the Interpreting industry is currently running at 20 per cent per month in the United States. It is in part driven by American businesses limiting the effects of the homeland recession by selling goods and services on a global market, and government organizations looking to work with companies that can help them lower costs without compromising service.
Worldwide, thebigword’s interpreting business, which provides interpreting from one language to another by the spoken word, either face-to-face or over the telephone, is expected to grow by 150 per cent during 2011, fuelled by major contract wins.
The fastest growing areas of business for thebigword are in U.S. and British Government contracts where increasingly cosmopolitan populations are driving the need for regional and national Government bodies to communicate in a range of languages.
With challenging economic conditions prevailing in both countries, thebigword has won Government business based on its ability to deliver savings expected to be US$100 million per year, whilst maintaining quality.
Chief Commercial Officer, Josh Gould, based at thebigword’s New York office says: “Governments use interpreters to save lives in healthcare, deliver justice, and police borders, among other vital services, so quality can’t be compromised”.
“The key to this is our new technology that improves the quality level of interpreting by combining e-learning and voice recognition systems, developed by our sister company Gould Tech Solutions.”
thebigword has bucked the trend during the downturn because of its decision to invest in people and technology at a time when most companies have cut back, Gould believes. “The key to our recent success is largely due to having the highest quality linguists whilst pricing at the correct levels given the global economic situation. This has been achieved by investing millions of dollars over the last couple of years into research and development of our technology and the constant development of our workforce at all levels.”
thebigword has grown its U.S. operation by 60 per cent in the past 12 months with corresponding increases in its UK business and offices in Beijing, Tokyo, San Franciso and across Europe. In-house staffing is expected to top 500 in the next three months, in addition to a network of up to 10,000 skilled linguists.
The language services market is growing at an annual rate of 13.5 per cent and is expected to reach US$38.14 billion in the next three years
