Italy forum < Job market for English speakers in Italy

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    No Italian. No Job.

    posted by  Loo King in Italy forum 

    I am an English IT Project Manager. I have been looking to live and work in Italy for some years now.

    Almost every professional job requires a good level of Italian. I have seen only a few, perhaps less that 10 over the last couple of years that have not required Italian language skills. The few that don't usually require rare technical skills. If you have rare skills in your particular field you might be lucky. Sadly I don't.

    However, the prospects of landing a decent/ well paid job with no or little Italian are remote. Firstly, there is unemployment at 8% I think, and Italians will give jobs to Italians first, it is only natural. Secondly, Italians are not great speakers of English.Yes there are exceptions, I know of a few that speak English better than I do. But the bulk of Italians, certainly away from Milan and Turin and the industrial areas, speak very little if any at all particularly away from coastal areas. So how are you going to ask for a job or a pay rise!

    There a lot of people trying their hands at teaching English with varying amounts of success and certification, TESL etc seems to help. There are plenting of forums on this so I won't go into detail. This may be a route to get started and potentially have a modest income.

    Ok the good news. Italian is a wonderfull and interesting language to learn. It is easy to get started but my experience is that it is difficult to master without immersion, like most languages I suspect. You will learn a lot about English as you progress. It sounds great and if you try and speak a bit of Italian whilst there you will get a warm welcome, corrected then given assistance, particularly the further inland you go. The food is great , the local wines great and the people friendly and helpfull.

    So, do the decent thing, learn some Italian. Try the CDs from the well known French Resistance Fighter Mr. MT. That is how I got started. Long way to go and little hope of a job but I have the Italian bug now.

    Ciao a tutti.

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