A recent report by Common Sense Advisory shows the telephone interpreting market resisting the recession.

According to Common Sense Advisory, a leading source of language service industry research, telephone interpreting has held steady through the recession, and even enjoyed a slight increase. However, it still represents a small share of the overall language service market.

CSA’s statistics demonstrate that telephone interpreting, or TI, now represents 3.40% of the overall market for language services; in 2010, it accounted for 3.26%.

Although some telephone interpreting providers are based in countries such as the UK or the Netherlands, most telephone interpreting services are provided by North American language service agencies.

An extract of Common Sense Advisory’s for-purchase report entitled “Trends in Telephone Interpreting,” is available online in PDF format. It presents the results of an in-depth survey telephone interpreting service buyers.

Nearly 60% of the survey respondents invest in telephone interpreting services for health care purposes, with an additional 13.5% of respondents hailing from social and government agencies.

Of course, these figures represent respondent percentage only, so, statistically, they do not necessarily give a true picture of the industries that purchase TI services the most.

Nonetheless, they certainly imply that the medical sector is highly involved in the use of telephone interpreting.

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  A leading language translation and interpretation service provider for more than 20 years.