Thread: Does Knowing Spanish Help Americans Get Jobs?

Some jobs in Utah want applicants to be Spanish-Speaking. Is the same happening in your area? Not that knowing another language is bad but not knowing Spanish seems to prevent many from getting jobs.

Example: http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org/ofc/1772030351.html

There are probably other similar help wanted ads out there.

I read another post somewhere that basically says these illegal aliens are making jobs for themselves by REFUSING to speak English. Then they DEMAND someone in the business speak SPANISH. That someone usually turns out to be another illegal alien!!!

yeah that is happening all over the country

Utah must still be sooo sheltered from IA's.

This bilingual for a job crap has been going on in CA for the last 20 years...

Sorry. Couldn't resist. Here's another one.

http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org/ofc/1771511304.html

I suppose that if you live in Miami or Los Angeles, Spanish is probably a must for hourly type jobs.

My experience in San Francisco is more than 36% of the jobs for which I applied required fluent Spanish -- reading and writing. I hear from others in California that it is about the same throughout my state now.

Think Quebec.....soon very soon my State will be a defacto part of Mexico if things do not change -- it is getting close now. Think of this, in 2008 the population of San Francisco was put at 808,000 and the City Government was complaining that with the illegal population THEN it would be over a MILLION. That means 2 congressional seats if the 2010 census agrees. That is TWO NANCY PELOSIS FOR SAN FRANCISCO.

...and one or both of them best learn Spanish now.

I also applied for a job,IN MY OWN HOMETOWN,and it asked if I knew Spanish. What a bunch of BS!

And you can go into furniture stores and such and find Spanish speaking employees there to HELP the Hispanics that DO NOT KNOW or REFUSE TO SPEAK ENGLISH . In a sense they then create a job for themselves.

Must be willing to learn

@legalalien...that was on your last posting out of Craig's list...So why don't they learn English? And learn to cross the borders legally. And remember how they got here so they can just back track and leave this country......

Some employers use language requirements to discriminate when in fact there is no reason for the applicant to speak a foreign language for the job. I have noticed these ads in San Francisco. However, where some people dont speak english in SF, most do. The bulk of the population does speak at least some english. Of course there are some who speak no english, but there is such a variety of languages, that no one person is going to know all of those langueages. So it makes no sense. For instance, I recently saw an ad for a restaurant that said that RUSSIAN was required. RUSSIAN? We dont have any large group of Russian only speakers here. Another ad was for German. GERMAN? Again, there is no large population of Germans. And the ads never say you can speak any languages, or several languages...but one specific language. So lets say the owner is Chinese, and they want to discriminate against anyone who is not Chinese...they can just put in the ad that you have to speak Chinese...even if it is not necessary for the job.

The McDonald's in Zion, IL requires Americans to be bilingual, but not the illegals. They can work in the kitchen if they don't speak English. I don't especially like McD's but knowing there are all illegals preparing my food will surely keep me away.