Act 3: Reframing the Scene

What does the future hold?

Chances are, every person you ask this question will offer a different answer. And that’s as it should be (let’s leave the probable-words-in-a-sequence prediction to something else). The future will likely be composed of a multiplicity of parallel realities, much like a multi-colored glass vitrage.

Any discussion about the future comes with its share of responsibility. A responsibility toward ourselves, the teams we work in, and the communities we are involved in. A responsibility for those who come next — the next generation of talent that will be entering our industry.

When reading this closing section, ask yourselves: What are YOU doing to affect those around you positively?

Eva Klaudinyova

Program Chair of the Translation and Localization Management program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Co-Founder of Women in Localization

Eva Klaudinyova has been in the localization industry since 2000, managing localization programs and teams at MediaLocate, VeriSign, VMware and Apple. Eva is a Co-Founder and an Advisory Board member of Women in Localization. She is currently an Associate Professor and a Program Chair of the Translation and Localization Management program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

A recurring question in us humans trying to cope with whatever the world throws at us (including AI) is who comes after. Sure, we’re all trying to do the best we can, but it’s legitimate to ask whether our best is enough for those we’ll be passing the torch to. Will anyone be willing to pick it up?

Our editor, Gabriel Karandyšovský, sat down in the virtual room with Eva Klaudinyova, Program Chair of the Translation and Localization Management program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and Co-Founder of Women in Localization, to shed light on the importance of talent and discuss who will lead us into the future.

Question: Do we have a talent problem on our hands? How difficult is it to attract new talent?

Eva: In the U.S., we’ve been seeing a steep decline in enrollment numbers, not just in higher education, but also in professional training programs, since about 2021-2022. Universities around the world are struggling with enrollment due to fears caused by AI.

Let me share the approximate breakdown of jobs in localization as of June 2025 and the difficulties that are present in each region:

• Approximately 45% of localization jobs are located in the U.S., which is dealing with an extremely high cost of education, strict immigration policies, waves of layoffs, an unstable political situation, and a slowdown in the job market for white-collar jobs, especially in tech, finance, and media.
• Approximately 35% of localization jobs are based in Europe. Education in Europe is less expensive than in the U.S. and, therefore, more accessible to a greater number of people. The EU has a lengthy immigration process, but offers much safer jobs in the long term. There is a slowdown in the job market for white-collar jobs, with growing emphasis on labor shortages in blue-collar jobs. Europe also faces demographic challenges, with fewer young workers entering the workforce in many industries.
• Approximately 20% of localization jobs are located outside the U.S. and the EU, with the majority in China, India, Japan, and Argentina. Most opportunities are available in China (despite the recent slowdown in the job market), India (owing to its growth), and Japan (due to labor shortages). The growth of localization jobs in Argentina, which has been plagued by low pay and strict governmental regulations, is now driven by remote opportunities for international companies. 

Beyond looking at industry jobs through a regional lens, there is the language angle, too. There are many low-resource languages with limited training data for AI, which are still relying heavily on human translation, so a specific blend of skills (translation, quality management, project management, and technology) is required for those localization jobs. 

In addition to the difficulties and challenges I’ve mentioned above, the new generation considering localization as a career path is concerned about quickly becoming obsolete due to the rapid developments in AI. Those who do enroll do it with the hope they won’t spend tens of thousands of dollars on learning a job that will be irrelevant before they even pay off half of their student loans. 

We’re in a state of upheaval, and if we want to attract talent, we need to offer not just a certain level of job stability and financial incentives, but also a clear plan for the future. As long as the industry’s main focus is on AI as the be-all and end-all, and we downplay the role humans still need to play in various roles within the process, we will continue to have problems attracting talent. 

Question: You spend a lot of time with students. Have you had any eye-opening interactions with them where you thought, “Wow, this is really good”?

Eva: I have these eye-opening moments every semester. There are always students who go above and beyond in their research, analysis, and solution design, and deliver work that’s at the level of more seasoned industry professionals, and it’s really rewarding to know that my colleagues and I inspired them to deliver this kind of work. 

What I really appreciate about the younger generations, especially Millennials and Gen Z, is their fearlessness. They explore areas that we, the older generations, never dared to explore at their age because “it wasn’t the right time,” or “we didn’t have the required amount of experience yet,” “we didn’t have the proper title yet that would allow us to speak up,” or “the hierarchy didn’t let us.” Fortunately, the younger generations don’t believe in these constraints. We’ve had students who hadn’t even graduated from our program, yet they already wrote articles for Multilingual Magazine or spoke at LocWorld, ATA, and other conferences, because they became experts in a specific area and they were not afraid to grab the opportunity by the horns and share their knowledge with the world.

Gen Zers are the youngest generation we’re seeing in school and the workplace, and it is the first generation that grew up with technology since they were toddlers. They grew up with it organically, are not afraid of it, and use it like an extension of their person. They are not just tech-savvy, they’re innovative. They think in broader contexts and they’re not afraid to explore new areas. They are perhaps less constrained with social norms than the older generations, and also more conscious of environmental and social impacts of decisions made by themselves or on their behalf, and they’re not afraid to challenge the status quo.

Question: There are rumors of a generational shift that needs to occur in our industry to help us get unstuck. Are we stuck?

Eva: I don’t think we’re stuck when it comes to innovation or opportunities; the spectrum is broader than ever. Where we are lacking, however, and in many ways even going backwards, is diversity — diversity of leadership, of ideas that fall outside current norms or the prevailing “mot du jour,”
and even the representation of the languages themselves. 

The industry is now dominated by technology companies led mostly by men from the U.S. or Europe. There are now fewer female leaders at the top of organizations than there were a few years ago, particularly in technology companies and LSPs. This lack of representation is now reflected in many of the industry conferences, with a few notable exceptions. Just look at the speakers in most of the panels — we’ve gone backwards. 

Our industry is too Anglophone, even though by nature, we’re the ones supposed to represent linguistic diversity. 

Any society without progress stagnates. However, kneeling at the altar of progress without considering all the other moral, ethical, societal, and environmental implications of said progress is dangerous. Sure, there are individual voices that are speaking up on these topics. Still, we, the localization industry as a whole, need to realize that we owe it to ourselves, as well as to future generations, not to follow the lead of a few billionaires blindly, but to integrate technologies thoughtfully and make our world a better, safer, and healthier place for everyone.

Question: Who gets to lead us forward in the years to come?

Eva: I don’t have the gift of prophecy, but my fervent hope is that our industry will be truly equal for everyone and that the leaders of the future will be diverse. That the amount of women in senior leadership positions will be proportionate to the percentage of women in localization. Seventy-six percent of the industry are women according to the 2023 Gender and Family Survey by CSA Research, yet they represent only 45% of higher leadership positions. 

I hope that the pay gap will close because men employed by organizations receive an additional 36% compared to women. I hope we’ll see more leaders from Asia, Africa, and South America in decision-making positions at all levels of their companies, and our industry will become truly multicultural
and multilingual. 

My other wish is that we, as an industry, also learn how to be sustainable, since the resources we’re currently consuming to drive our AI revolution and the constant growth required by the companies most of us work for are extremely taxing on our planet. 

I simply wish we could all become better humans and be led by people with a much more thoughtful and comprehensive vision of the bright new future. 

Read the full 132-page Global Ambitions: (R)Evolution in Motion publication featuring vital perspectives from 31 industry leaders on the ongoing AI-spurred (r)evolution.

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