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White-collar workers see language as key

A large share of white-collar employees in Taiwan are studying English or Japanese to improve their chances of promotion or pay raises in the workplace, a Job Bank survey showed.

The survey, conducted by the 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行) — one of the largest online human resource companies in Taiwan — showed that 45.3 percent of local companies polled felt that foreign language ability — especially English — was the skill office workers most needed to meet job requirements.

Job Bank said that in the second half of last year, 34.4 percent of visitors to its Web site who sought information on continuing education opted for language courses, 2.6 percent more than in the second half of 2006. Of those, 64 percent opted for English and 27 percent Japanese, officials said.

Only 8 percent searched for information on Korean courses, an indication that white-collar employees choose to learn a foreign language mainly to meet their needs in school examinations, at work or for international occasions, job bank officials said.

Citing a study by the US-based Thunderbird School of Global Management of more than 500 graduates who received foreign language training, Job Bank said 82 percent of respondents said that good foreign language skills made them more marketable, 39 percent said they were often asked to make overseas trips and 32 percent were asked to be posted abroad.
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