By Aimee Ansari and Catherine Fox
Both the language services industry and the humanitarian and development aid sector have been going through huge and painful changes recently. Language services are facing severe pressure from the impacts of machine translation and AI, which threaten the prospects and viability of freelancers and industry professionals. Meanwhile, changes in the aid industry have been dramatic with drastic and rapid cuts to US and other government budgets leading to significant staff reductions and profound uncertainty within organisations dedicated to serving vulnerable communities in the most insecure locations. These dramatic changes dovetail to imply significant change in the area where these industries intersect, leading to severe uncertainty for the individuals working in these industries. In this moment of change and unpredictability, it is critical to protect human expertise to limit long-term loss of skills, to safeguard the wellbeing of people working in these fields, and to maintain the quality of translation and interpreting services in an industry where communications are very often high-stakes.
The intense pressure on both industries is already leading to the loss of experienced and highly qualified staff. More experienced colleagues, both in the aid sector and the language services industry, are quitting their jobs in increasing numbers due to disillusionment, moral injury, and lack of financial viability. Translation and interpreting face three particular challenges: prices are falling due to market pressure, the platform economy is damaging worker rights, and clients increasingly opt for machine translation post-editing or AI over human expertise. These trends are eroding job satisfaction and professional sustainability.
Potential new recruits have to some extent seen the writing on the wall, with fewer students signing up for language studies and some universities closing their modern language departments altogether. With dramatic cuts and reorganisations in the aid sector, organisations may increasingly rely on unpaid internships to fill staffing gaps. To make matters worse, these unpaid positions will exclude candidates who cannot afford to work without pay, worsening inequality in the sector. This crunch in resources risks damaging long-term human capital, with lasting effects for years to come.
Sustaining expertise through sector upheaval
So, what can be done to prevent irreversible damage to the industries and to protect the people working within them? This crisis puts enormous strain on individual workers who are fighting to protect their jobs, wellbeing, and family livelihoods. The situation demands strong leadership from industry and associations. The language services and aid sectors must support emerging talent while retaining experienced professionals who can pass on knowledge and skills.
Mentoring schemes can connect different areas of the workforce and encourage mutual learning. Employers should value skills over years of experience, especially in fast-changing industries where a long time on the job is not necessarily a good predictor of success. Industry and associations need to work with academia and training providers to attract new talent. Meanwhile, the machine translation community is starting to acknowledge that technology assessments need to expand beyond performance metrics to include environmental and human impact.
And what can individual workers do to stay well and continue to find fulfillment at work? Given the high proportion of freelancers in the industry collaboration and networking are essential. Sharing challenges and solutions can help to counter the feelings of isolation and hopelessness that these changes bring about. Active associations and their networks, such as the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, the Association of Translation Companies, and the International Federation of Translators are worth their weight in gold in these difficult times. Freelancers and industry professionals would do well to invest their time in building and contributing to these bodies.
Continuing professional development is essential, not only to gain new skills, but to remain agile and open to new ideas and learning. The current state of these industries demands a new generation of translators, interpreters, and aid workers who can use tech and can teach themselves to keep up-to-date with tools that are constantly changing. They can achieve this through paid learning programs or by tapping into the extensive range of available open-source resources out there.
Workers must ultimately protect their wellbeing, ride the storms faced by these industries and remain flexible. While market conditions shift, human skills in these areas will always be needed. Professionals will continue to serve as the ‘human in the loop’ or oversee the work of automated systems. All these changes are exhausting, so we need to pace ourselves mindfully, find new sources of motivation and prevent the burnout that is a real threat to human expertise in both industries.
Aimee Ansari is CLEAR Global’s CEO.
Catherine Fox is a freelance translator working from French and Spanish into English, after over a decade of experience in the humanitarian and development sector. She recently completed a Master’s in specialised translation at the University of Geneva. Her research interests include translation and emotion, translator self-care and translators adapting to new technology.