What have economic changes done to the translation industry?
There are two words that cover this: globalization and recession. Both, interestingly enough, have created some of the same pressures on the translation industry, much as they have elsewhere in the world. To put it bluntly, when someone who is desperate to work from another part of the world can do what you can do for less, it becomes harder to earn a living, despite one’s productivity or professionalism, or the differing quality of the product. The recession has put some clients out of business, as well, and has put legitimate downward pressure on what one can ask a client to pay. So a translation professional increasingly needs to either specialize or differentiate his or herself, in order to earn a decent living.
-By Adriana Tassini
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