Survey Results Analyzed

I've noticed that every obscure experience or piece of information you've ever encountered in your life is likely to become relevant at some point in your translation career.

Well, running the first online translators' survey was like that for me. It took me back to childhood holidays spent in the town of Dubbo, in the Australian Outback. There, my parents, Dr. Leon and Judith Simons, respectively a professor of medicine and a statistician, were laying the groundwork for their landmark long-term health research project, the Dubbo Study. After rapidly exhausting Dubbo's few entertainments, we children soon retreated to the project's air-conditioned headquarters on the town's main street where we found unexpected satisfaction in sorting hundreds of survey forms and helping our parents collate the data. Though I had no idea who the respondents were, I found the disembodied snippets of personal information fascinating.

My own attempts to design this survey and analyze the results are certainly that of an amateur and I don't present them as conclusive, but they certainly are interesting and I think that each person can draw conclusions that are relevant for themselves.

To view the final results, click here.

First, I want to state that I think that respondents were generally accurate in their answers with the exception of the question about monthly income. People are naturally hesitant to reveal such information. In fact, out of 138 respondents, 33 skipped the question altogether.

One of the most important questions for me was the one which asked if work volume/earnings had changed in the past nine months. While it is clear that the world is experiencing an economic crisis, no one is sure how deep the impact has been in Israel or whether it is affecting the local translation industry. The survey results seem to indicate that while the majority of translators reported that their income had stayed the same or increased, 42% have been negatively affected by the downturn to some degree. I assume that this means that the industry as a whole has only slightly declined, probably primarily in certain specializations and therefore not effecting all translators. On the other hand, a slight drop during a major recession is probably an indication of general robustness in the industry. Translation is generally a great field to be in!

More amateur analysis to come from me soon. In the meantime, everyone is encouraged to view the results and draw their own conclusions. You can filter the results, as well as view individual response sheets, so that you can focus your interest on particular language pairs, specializations, etc. Feel free to post comments on this blog!