Foreign Language Skills and Willingness to Move: The Case of a Spanish Region
| Author | Juan Francisco Canal‐Domínguez,César Rodríguez‐Gutiérrez |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12231 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
Foreign Language Skills and Willingness to
Move: The Case of a Spanish Region
C
esar Rodr
ıguez-Guti
errez* and Juan Francisco Canal-Dom
ınguez*
ABSTRACT
This research is aimed at assessing the effect of foreign language skills on the geographical
area selected by the Spanish unemployed when looking for a job. A Zero-Inflated Ordered
Probit (ZIOP) model has been estimated to analyse the impact of foreign language skills on
the geographical scope of the search. The outcomes show that the job search area is broader
in case of men, young unemployed, more educated people, and those who never received
unemployment benefits. Likewise, foreign language skills (in English, German and French) are
highlighted as one of the most influencing factors when widening the job search area.
INTRODUCTION
Most research analysing the foreign language skills of workers is focused on the economic perfor-
mance of the command of the local language by immigrant workers (Bleakley and Chin, 2004)
and, to a lesser extent, on the performance of the command of a foreign language by local workers
(Saiz and Zoido, 2005; Ginsburgh and Prieto-Rodr
ıguez, 2013; Azam et al., 2013). However, the
effect of foreign language skills on the selection of the job search area in case of unemployed
workers has hardly been analysed in the literature so far. In this respect, Spain is one of the Euro-
pean countries with the lowest level of foreign language skills while at the same time presenting
one of the highest unemployment rates (Ginsburgh and Prieto-Rodr
ıguez, 2013). The data from the
First European Survey of Language Competences (European Commission, 2012) show that only
24 per cent of secondary education students reached level B in listening to English texts in 2012.
This poor knowledge of foreign languages, particularly English, might be one of the reasons pre-
venting unemployed people from broadening their job search in Spain. To limit the search to regio-
nal or even national areas might be an important constraint on obtaining a job, given the current
crisis (unemployment rate was over 25% of labour force during the first quarter of 2014). Within
the European Union framework, the Single Market allows Spanish unemployed people to look for
jobs under just three restrictions: availability to travel, accommodation costs and command of a for-
eign language. Even though the European Single Market has been going for many years, the post-
ing of workers has not yet been sufficient to reduce the imbalance among labour markets. As
OECD (2012) points out, “greater mobility between EU countries would help meet imbalances in
demand and supply, as well as making it easier for workers and firms to make the right job
matches. Labour mobility in the EU remains low: only 3 per cent of working-age EU citizens live
in a different EU country. Indeed, migration from outside the EU is much larger than migration
within the EU, accounting for around 5 per cent of the working-age population, although this most
* University of Oviedo, Spain
doi: 10.1111/imig.12231
©2016 The Authors
International Migration ©2016 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (3) 2016
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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