Employer preferences: Do bilingual applicants and employees experience an advantage?

As the nation’s population continues to grow, its racial, ethnic and linguistic landscape is also transforming. More than 60 million people over the age of five speak a language other than English at home in the US (US Census Bureau, 2013), accounting for one of every five residents. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of these individuals speak Spanish, followed at a distant second by Chinese (4.8%, almost 3 million speakers). There are also nearly 2 mil-lion or more speakers of French, German, Korean, Vietnamese and Tagalog in the US (US Census Bureau, 2013). While the traditional immigrant gateway states (i.e. California, Texas, Florida and New York) continue to have the largest concentrations, other states have actually experienced more growth among speakers of other languages. The ‘new South’ (i.e. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina) has experienced an explosion of Spanish speakers over the last two decades, often in communities where virtually none existed before. Maine and Louisiana have seen an increase in the number of French speakers while the number of German speakers has grown in North Dakota and South Dakota. In Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the number of Slavic language speakers has also increased (US Census Bureau, 2010). Furthermore, the nation’s linguistic diversity has developed at a rapid pace.