Our recent press release!
We’re in a recession but the UK economy is losing out because of our lack of language skills. That was the message from the European Award for Languages 2009, where multi lingual recruiter Euro London Appointments sponsored the Business Language Prize.
The ceremony reinforced the message that languages are key to the UK workplace. Baroness Coussins, Chair of the Parliamentary group on modern languages, quoted recent research that found the UK loses up to £21 billion a year in lost contracts because of the lack of language skills in the British workforce. She also pointed out that teams from 205 countries will be participating in the London Olympic Games in just three years time and urged language learners to continue working hard to turn around the negative stereotype surrounding Brits and languages.
“As a company that not only recruits multi lingual personnel, but whose staff all speak another language, we really appreciate how important languages are to the business world” says David Shacklock, Managing Director of Euro London Appointments. “It’s great to get involved in projects like this and encourage language learning, which is crucial to ensure that we have enough talented linguists to make up the next generation of business leaders. These figures are just more evidence that more needs to be done when it comes to language learning. That missing £21 billion could go a long way to lifting us out of this recession.”
Euro London awarded the Business Language Prize of £1000 to a project called ‘Eurofest’ for developing language provision to match the needs of business and employers. The awards were held in Bristol by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, to reward language learning projects from around the UK. They also featured journalist, broadcaster and keen linguist, Henry Bonsu, as Master of Ceremonies.
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