scrubbedexpat137 

Hi,

I've been in Spain for more years than I'd really like to remember, and I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, or it's related to regions I've lived in recently, or it's just my imagination.

I feel there has been a sharp drop in English-speaking jobs since the Brexit Referendum. Tongue-in-cheek explanation but I think it holds true:
What used to be a job requirement for 'English + another European language' metamorphosed overnight into 'any European languages except for English which is suddenly irrelevant for the selection process'.

Could that possibly be 'hostile environment' political/business playbook stuff, so those of us who do want to reside in Europe are 'punished' or made to feel unwelcome for a decision that - like the result or not - is a country's right and won't 'punish' those who don't want to reside in Europe. Like slapping the person to your left because the person to your right disagrees with you?

As I say, I'm perplexed, but if it looks like dirt, smells like dirt, feels like dirt, surely it is dirt.

Dxf

Hola,

Just today a took a friend to the clinic and when they came out, they were amazed as the nurse insisted on speaking English as she needed to practice. I explained that everyone need an English qualification to get a job these days so of course they want to improve their English.

Davexf

scrubbedexpat137 

Hi Dave,

Yes, Spanish people like to and need to practice their English, and good for them.

I meant in the sense that English seems to have become less of a main asset for foreign jobseekers whereas virtually all the other European languages and often e.g. Urdu, Hindi, Swahili are also becoming an important language skill over English.

For the average Brit who may only speak English, and hopefully at least some Spanish, this makes job-hunting much harder than it was say three years ago, even for very badly-paid online bit work (I loathe the term 'gig economy' - it gives a sense of rock 'n' roll to trashy, exploitative, dead-end jobs), and to a degree, pushes them out onto the fringes of the labour market in a country where work is hard to come by to begin with. Maybe coastal and other touristic areas do not have this problem and jobseeking is much easier for Brits.

scot47

"Everyone speaks English anyway." That was always a myth and perhaps people are now waking up to that reality.

scrubbedexpat137 

Hi,

You make a really good point with that observation, thanks. Not all of us have grown up with that attitude, but the seeming lack of interest in language learning is something that has always let us Brits down abroad and it looks kind of rude to those from the host country, perhaps.

Great comment, scot47, thanks.

olivefarmer

The EU Commission still conducts some of its business in English. English is a well used language along with Mandarin and Spanish.

chopera

Nearly all international business is conducted in English. Anybody in a Spanish company who needs to talk to someone else outside Spain will do it in English, unless it's another Spanish speaking country. This especially holds true with the EU, where there are plenty of multinational companies, all using English to communicate internally. English has become the lingua franca of the business world, and that's got very little to do with the UK being part of the EU or not. In fact it's got very little to do with the UK at all these days. I suspect the UK could sink into the see tomorrow and English would still be the lingua franca. People don't learn English because they want to talk to people from the UK. They learn English so they can talk to people from practically anywhere in the world.

scrubbedexpat137 

Hi,

Interesting points you guys make. The language of commerce and diplomacy, and so on.

m2m2012

Exactly.