Multilingualism in the workplace
Globalization has led the world to be more deeply interconnected. Consequences of this are that more and more companies are trading with foreign countries, and with countries that don't necessarily speak the same language. English has become an important working knowledge mainly in multinational companies, but also in smaller companies.
Multilingualism in English speaking countries
According to Hewitt (2008) entrepreneurs in London from Poland, China or Turkey use English mainly for communication with customers, suppliers and banks, but their own native languages for work tasks and social purposes. Even in English speaking countries immigrants are still able to use their own mother tongue in the workplace thanks to other immigrants from the same place. Kovacs (2004)[36] describe this phenomenon in Australia with Finnish immigrants in the construction industry who spoke Finnish during working hours. But even though foreign languages may be used in the work place, English is still a must-know working skill. Mainstream society justifies the divided job market, arguing that getting a low-paying job is the best newcomers can achieve considering their limited language skills.
Multilingualism in Asia, America, and Africa
With companies going international they are now focusing more and more on the English level of their employees. Especially in South Korea since the 1990s, companies are using different English language testing to evaluate job applicants, and the criteria in those tests are constantly upgrading the level for good English. In India it is even possible to receive training to acquire an English accent, as the number of outsourced call centres in India has soared in the past decades. Not only in multinational companies is English an important skill, but also in the engineering industry, in the chemical, electrical and aeronautical fields. A study directed by Hill and van Zyl (2002) shows that in South Africa young black engineers used English most often for communication and documentation. However, Afrikaans and other local languages were also used to explain particular concepts to workers in order to ensure understanding and cooperation.
Multilingualism in Europe
In Europe, as domestic market is generally quite restricted, international trade is a norm. But there is no predominant language in Europe (with German spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium; French in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland; and English in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Malta). Most of the time English is used as a communication language, but in multilingual countries such as Belgium (French, Dutch and German), Switzerland (German, French, Italian and Romanche) or Spain (Spanish, Catalan, Basque and Galician) it is common to see employees mastering two or even three of those languages. Some languages such as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are so close to each other that it is generally more common for meeting to use their mother tongue rather than English.
Continued global diversity has led to an increasingly multilingual workforce. Europe has become an excellent model to observe this newly diversified labor culture. The expansion of the European Union with its open labor market has provided opportunities both for well-trained professionals and unskilled workers to move to new countries to seek employment. Political changes and turmoil have also led to migration and to the creation of new and more complex multilingual workplaces. In most wealthy and secure countries, immigrants are found mostly in low paid jobs but also, increasingly, in high status positions.
