The beginning of the year is always a time for retrospective analysis and predictions of where things are going to go during the next year ahead. No less is this the case than for the technical translation industry. What follows is a somewhat tongue in cheek version of what the expected trends are for the technical translation service industry in 2015.
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Reverse migration trends
As the cost of housing escalates in mainland USA, many technical translators are expected to downsize their accommodation and move offshore to live. The hot favourites for this mobile workforce are Central and South American countries. Technical translators can work just about anywhere as long as they have an internet signal, but the prediction is that native born technical writers from those self same refuges will find jobs in the U.S., make money and up skill, returning home at some stage to find themselves employing the technical translators who had been born in the land to the North.
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Machine translators outnumber human translators
It is thought that improvements in machine translation (MT) are likely to lead to the scenario where a majority of translation services, especially the more mundane and routine translation tasks, are finally taken over by technology. One of the reasons for this trend continuing is simply that machine translators can work all day and night, weekends or holidays included and don’t ask to have sick leave. Of course, the niche role for human document translations, like specialised business or legal document translations will still survive, but it may become increasingly lonely out there.
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Growing demand for the aging baby boomer translation industry
The baby boomer generation is aging fast and is increasingly international – if nothing else because the globe-trotting boomers have ended up all over the world. The trouble is they also belong to a generation which never took that kindly to learning the language native to the country they have settled in. They just have the money to pay for professional translation services to help them out sort out deeds, get visas and translate medical records for insurance purposes.
