Foreign language courses sales increase directly linked to the recession

Despite the current poor state of the economy, Saint George International (SGI), the language training specialists, have announced a marked increase in the number of foreign language courses sales, throughout the UK, in the first 2 quarters of the year.

The school’s marketing team has concluded that this surge of activity is in fact a direct result of the economic crisis. Many professional people, recently made redundant, are turning to language study as they increasingly seek an edge in their job search or look for a career change as they find themselves dealing with an extremely competitive and saturated job market.

To underline this later point , Britain reached a bleak milestone in May this year, as figures showed the number of workers now unemployed passed 2.4 million, the highest it has been since 1995. Indeed a recent report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel And Development suggests the jobs market will continue to shrink over the next three months – with both private and public sector chiefs planning to lay off many more people than they hire.
Improving language skills, or indeed learning a new language, is obviously one clear route open to people wanting to make themselves more employable, particularly given the international nature of companies and commercial activity these days. Employers are now particularly keen to hire people who speak more than one language and, given the current job market, having good language skills can make all the difference.

Max Loach, School Director of Saint George International comments: “Since the beginning of this year we’ve seen a very healthy increase in the number of people attending our foreign language courses throughout the UK, particularly those learning French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian and Chinese but other languages as well. This has also covered all types of language study, General, Business Language courses and Academic Language Courses. Feedback from students suggests that this situation is a direct result of the economic downturn as a good number of them have recently lost their jobs or are concerned about losing their jobs and so are taking the opportunity to improve their language skills or possibly taking the plunge to learn a new language. I do feel that learning a new language is a real positive investment in one’s future at anytime but especially during a time of crisis like the one we’re in now.”
Find out more about all the quality SGI Foreign Languages programmes at:
http://www.stgeorges.co.uk/foreign-languages or our English courses in London.