The Lockdown and Effect on Translation Services

For the last recent year 2020, the world has been affected by a virus that makes people stay at home. It cast uncertainty on the future of the whole planet. The WHO confirmed COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. The virus affected the whole world, especially the business world across all occupations including translation services. Many companies  nowadays provide lockdown translation services.

Businesses, schools, and every other occupation adopt remote working in order to tackle the difficulties during the lockdown situation, which has its pros and cons. What about the translation industry? Well, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world greatly and the impacts of it are not going anywhere soon.

It forces the translation and interpretation services to immediately adopt digital technology to combat the disruption of daily operations. If you are looking for lockdown translation services, you must read this article. We’ll discuss the impacts of the pandemic on the translation industry and how translation companies manage to provide their lockdown translation services during the whole situation. Let’s just have a detailed look at it!

THE LOCKDOWN AND EFFECT ON TRANSLATION SERVICES

The world is facing an unusual breakout, COVID-19 pandemic has hit more than 200 countries so far and it’s spreading more and more, rapidly. The WHO advised the countries to prevent the spread of the virus through the global pandemic. When people stayed at home, they need to interact with others to maintain their mental health.

So, they used social media platforms to keep themselves updated as well as socialize with their friends and family. Apart from that people need to continue their business to prevent further loss. Translation service providers have always been played a key role in international business.

During the pandemic, the translation language industry shifts its services to the online platform and provides the best possible way to effectively communicate with their clients. The on-demand economy leads the world to stop complaining about the pandemic and start implementing alternatives.

No doubt the COVID-19 crisis greatly affects the business but it doesn’t mean that people help themselves helpless. They stand up against the COVID-19 outbreak and started remote working. Like every other industry, language service providers also step forward and provide on-demand interpreting and translating services to their clients.

Although it was slow progress, eventually translation industry got a positive response in return. Moreover, the translation and interpretation demand changed such as a decrease from the sectors of travel or leisure. The demand from paramedics, health care, and medical science sectors gets higher.

Apart from that, the freelance translators also made explosive growth during the difficult times of pandemics. In short, the lockdown affected the translation businesses but gradually they started progressing after successfully provided their services during the lockdown.

WHO THRIVES MORE DURING THE PANDEMIC?

During the pandemic, the translation and interpretation priorities changed for different sectors and industries.

For example, language service providers reported a decrease in demand for their services from sectors like event organizers, travel and leisure clubs, and other entertainment industries. According to a survey, translation companies got an increase in demand from health care sectors, life sciences, medical sectors, and pharmaceutical industries.

The reason is the prevention of COVID was a priority and doctors and scientists need to research the virus to get the cure for the disease. Moreover, hospitals need interpretation services to have effective communication between the patients and the doctors. The change in demand for interpretation services highly varies between sectors.

Translation companies that are already providing their remote services flourish their businesses more to maintain their communication with the staff, peers, prospects, and the public. Video conferencing platforms such as Google meet, Zoom, or teams are an example of this. Their worth tripled over the last few months as the best remote working platform for video conferences.

To return back to reality, companies are encouraging their employees to work from home, using these platforms for video conferencing. It’s become our new normal and honestly the way to the future. It’s inevitable progress that has been created by the COVID-19 outbreaks.
A lot of companies have already extended their work from home policy until the COVID pandemic isn’t over and they implement no travel policy, the local, international, or streaming events are most likely to continue remotely in the near future.

THE IMPACT OF PANDEMIC ON TRANSLATORS

At the start of the COVID pandemic, people got to panic about their jobs and business because everything was new. Just like that, the translation professional also got affected not just professionally but also mentally. No one knows where these crises will lead us. It caused a lot of people to fear that they may lose their jobs or suffer losses in businesses.

Eventually, people will have to change their profession in order to live their lives. However, for translators working from home is nothing new. It was very common for translators to work with companies, agencies and directly to the client at the comfort of their homes, even before the pandemic. So, it was quite easy for them to adopt the new way of working.

But not everything is on a smooth plane, and the older people have had difficulty using platforms like MS teams or zoom. They suffered from the drop in their incomes. Therefore, some of them decided to take some IT training to continue efficient working and avoid the drop in incomes.

This drop in income makes a lot of translators too worried about their job; some of them switch to freelance translation jobs to work on their own. But the increase in demand for medical and health documents force some of them to stick to their profession and continue working with translation companies.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE FOR THE TRANSLATION INDUSTRY?

Resilience and adaptability are the key requirements for the whole translation industry in order to succeed in the new normal. Language service providers that are already working remotely and providing their services online are in a better positing than those that work offline. But it doesn’t mean at all the offline service providers are fighting a losing battle; they are learning to provide their services better as well.

Online platforms are becoming commonplace to ease the lockdown in some countries. Shifting to new normal needs different kinds of requirements for inclusivity and audience engagement. Translators and interpreters are working on it and offer participants to join the conversation in their native language.

They also provide the audience accurate translation which ultimately raises a successful event. Remote working may lead to an increase in demand for translation services in the future as well. Because they are more affordable, efficient, attainable, and easier to arrange, especially for the organizations that are working on a smaller level.

WRAP UP

COVID-19 would not last forever but it will have a long-lasting effect on how translators and interpreters work in the future. Business meetings, political conferences, and the department of education need translation services more than ever, during the pandemic. In short, the translation demand is getting higher rapidly even during the pandemic.

So, in order to evolve in the translation industry, translators and interpretation experts need to be more flexible, perseverant, and resilient to meet the requirements of today’s digital world.