JLFS

You are overlooking the fact that for every high flyer with a job there are hundreds if not thousands doing customer service jobs and other "mundane" jobs.

For every "dream"job, there are 10 thousand ordinary jobs, and those ordinary call entre/customer service jobs are being done by graduates too, (not enough dream jobs for all of them). And to anyone on a low paid job the extra few quid an hour for a second language makes a difference at the end of the month.

BTW only the lucky graduates with a second language are working in call centres at an enhanced rate, the rest are working in pubs, burger kings, or most likely on the dole.

cricketman

Yep sadly true for many at the moment.

Hardly an incentive to learn languages for youngsters though is it? Work hard, pass all your exams, maybe spend time in another country to polish your language then if your lucky you may get an extra £3 per hour at the call centre

Again, this is why imo language learning should be spurred from an interest in the culture and country and not for monetry returns

Domino

It is very unusual for me to disagree with you J, but on this I feel I must.

All jobs are of equal standing at no matter what level. In fact those who are allowed to believe they are "only a receptionist" or "only a call centre operator" should be taken into a classroom and have it drummed into them that they are more important than the MD, CFO et.
They are the one's who have first contact with the client, the manner in which they handle that first contact is a reflection on the company, and will effect the conversation from there, and perhaps the whole of the relationship.

"only a receptionist" actually knows who is in the building, who does what job, who they work for, who works for them, can they be disturbed, are they in a meeting etc etc. That interested, wide awake, cheerful voice or the tired, bored voice - which one do you want to listen to?

instill a little bit of self resepct into staff, give them a little bit of pride, it will come through in the long term for you and them

If you are a business owner or manager, have you ever played "mystery caller" and seen how your staff answer the phone, how they are treated.?

rant over.....

cricketman

I dont know why this contridicts what JLFS says.

What you describe is someone who is good at their customer service job, but there is a reason why they are paid say 15k per year while the CEO is on 1.5 million

The trend over the past 10 years or so has been for salaries for "mundane" easily replacable jobs to go down and for executive board pay to go up. Basically CEOs have been making the average job less demanding intellectually and cutting the salaries to give themselves better pay

e.g. a worker in a local branch of a bank would have been on 25-30k 10 years ago, now they will be on 15-20k, but have zero autonomy to make decisions

The result is customer service gets worse and a the majority of people earn less every month

steviedeluxe

Sadly you're right. In fact I've seen IT jobs in London that ask for additional languages, yet give lower rates than you'd expect for the IT skills. I think, because London is such an international draw, companies know this and so seek foreign workers in the belief they'll work for less and be more grateful.

jackytoo

The best paid jobs for people with language skills is eg. working in Brussels as a Translator, criminal courts in the UK. Freelance for the NHS (up to £100 per hour but irregular) or international banking. There is a lot of competition though. Don't forget there are thousands of bilingual people who are the product of spanish/English etc. marriages and thousands of graduates every year in a second language, they aren't unique.

Of about 20 people who had a degree in Spanish who I knew only 1 actually used the language in their job and she became a teacher.

cricketman

Not sure how many opps there are in international banking, maybe there are a few niche positions

But yes, there is lots of competition. Almost every European graduate now at least says that they are fluent in 2 or 3 languages and many of them actually are

My wife worked in a company in London where they asked for 3 EU langauges with an Asian language being a bonus. Out of the 15-20 people there only two were British. My wife hired maybe 10 people while she was there, none were British. A. because their language skills werent good enough and B. the starting salary was 16k, hardly attractive. Although it was good enough to attract good Spanish, French, Polish, Swedish and Japanese graduates who were living in London

Domino

not sure what that says about the Brits, or what it says about the others.
you would probably find similar job advertised in say Barcelona paying more than €19,124 (£16k).

however, what must also be considered is the living arrangements of the individuals concerned. Most non-Brits may well be living in shared accommodation with no ties whilst the Brits will be endeavouring to live on their own or with parents or even partner of some sort.

by the way the UK National Average salary is somewhere around £24,500pa (€29,281) so a salary of £16k in London is a very low, subsistance, wage that for an international company wishing to attract the right sort of person is a very poor advert.
Some HR departments will take the fact an outgoing employee can speak 3 languages and add it into the job description - even when not needed to do the job.

There used to be a time when someone with a language skill could demand extra money, lots if it was Russian, Cantonese or Mandarin.

cricketman

This was the starting salary for 21-23 yo graduates, it went up pretty quickly if you got promoted. However, many people didnt get promoted so were stuck on that salary.

We moved to Barcelona from London. Wages in 2007 were about one third less than London across the board.

And dont think that only foreigners share flats in London! I left London when I was 27, probably knew 20-30 odd British people my age from work, footy etc. Almost all earning over the average salary. And maybe only 5 of them had their own place, the rest flat shared.

Its at least £600/month to rent a double room in a nice part of London and at least £1300 for a 1 bed flat.

Lenox

There's a Polish beggar who squats down outside the supermarket, his hat on the floor beside him. He speaks Spanish and Polish. Maybe some other Eastern languages. Perhaps he's a computer technician or a cancer specialist. He's now learning English if his well-thumbed Polska/English dictionary is anything to go by. At the other door, there's an old Romanian mama, who has a card in Spanish about how she's hungry. There's a vertically-challenged Frenchman along the road a bit, begging outside the estanco. He has a joke about being a little short. At the correos, it's some fellow with a dog. He looks Nordic or maybe British. People give food to his dog and go 'tut tut' to him. Perhaps he's a linguist too.
(I'm not making any of them up)
But each case and everyone is different. I know an English kid, now in his late twenties, who is working for a fancy lawyers' bufete. Another has her own shop and is a councillor in local politics. Another is a vet, doing well and happy. Another still is being subsidized by a national football team for his studies and is now in Madrid. All bilingual, all brought up in Spain, all English.

JLFS

Hi Domino,

I think you may have misunderstood my post.

the point I was trying to get across was/is, that whenever jobs are discussed on this site, everyone talks about the "highflyers".

I have no qualifications, but have gumption, my son has "gas safe" and even more gumption, daughter just has loads of gumption, niether wanted to go to uni, or travel abroad to find a job. They have what I call "jobs" not careers, just jobs. But more importantly they are both happy and are thrilled with the choices they made.

I have always instilled in them that they need to work to the best of their ability, even when doing a paper round, I am not on a downer on the working Joe , the opposite infact.

When I wrote about "mundane"and "ordinary"jobs I highlighted them to show that most people do this type of job.

As opposed to some members on here who seem to think that "the salaried in London" are the only workers in UK.

The vast majority of parents, and this forum is no exception, will have kids that end up, with "mundane"jobs ie they will not be the high flyers.

And the main thread in my posts about expats kids in Spain,are always answered, with the "they will need to travel anyway to get a decent job"

I have often said,that a persons life is more than a job, and while a potential high ambitioned/acheiver/earner would benefit going back to the UK for a well paid job, the less "qualified/ambitious would not benefit.

As to get any type of job in Spain,seems to be out of their reach, and on the wage they could hope to earn in the UK, it would not be enough for them to live, if they were not living at home with parents, as most young workers do at least to start with.
But the expats kids are in a sort of wilderness, not able to find a job in Spain, and unable to return without a family home base in the UK, as their earning powere will not permit it.

If the parents are living in Spain, then the unemployed expat kids have their options severly limited as to taking a job in the UK, and also not every kid want to leave home, just for a job.

anonimouse

IMO You don't have to be a high flyer to get on, anyone can be even more successful than a true high flyer if he/she has the gumption and borrowing power when in a mundane job, to get on.

JLFS

A good way of putting it.....

Domino

no problem J, discussions here would be much easier on a 1:1 but we all get by.

would I be naive in suggesting that the feral Brit kids have been with us decades, just that in times gone by dad may have been able to employ them to do nothing, but they were still off the rails some of the time. Now dad has problems keeping his own job. But then many books have been turned into films and TV series about the wastrel son(s).

the same applies in other countries, not just of Brits I hasten to add, but many expats have kids who run off the rails. Perhaps it is getting worse, with the increase in "instant" communication, where daily newspapers are late getting things out where they used to be the media of information.

I have a mistrust of this "instant" communication era, which I remember forecasting back in the early 70's when Sinclair brought out the calculators and wrist watches, I could see that we would have a radio as part of our watches. Well ok not quite right but almost. I have been in communications all my working life, one way or another but have grown to mistrust it, probably because it is misused by many for their own devious ends.

on a lighter side - you mention gumption, well that used to be a cleaning paste product decades ago.

JLFS

What you say is true........but for every CEO there are thousands of workers who arent CEOs, and I really dont think that many of the 1.5million salaried workers are kids of expats in Spain, which is what the tread is all about.

Also the UK isnt London and London isnt the UK, there is more to the country than the capital.