Interpreting Market in Hong Kong
The government is by far the largest employer of interpreters in Hong Kong. Within the Judiciary, the court interpreter establishment is 167(1). Added to that are freelance interpreters of various languages such as: Luganda, Arabic (Tunisia), Bengali, Hausa, Italian, Mongolian, Persian, Sinhala, Swahili, Russian(2). The local legislature is also served by a team of simultaneous interpreters with an establishment of 12(3). The Hong Kong Police used to have a cadre of Police Interpreters, but this grade has been terminated through natural attrition.
Outsourcing by government agencies have also created job opportunities for private sector interpreters. Agencies such as the Equal Opportunity Commission; Mandatory Provident Fund Authority; Hospital Authority and Housing Authority have on numerous occasions used private sector simultaneous interpreters when government interpreters are too busy serving the legislature. Use of freelance consecutive interpreters in government agencies is much less limited; the only known occasions being the Board of Review for Tax Appeal and during a court interpreter strike in the early 1980's which did not last very long.
The private sector has a much more diverse use of interpretation services compared to the government. First, the language combinations are more varied. The working languages in local government are the Cantonese dialect and English. Occasionally, the courts might need to recruit temporary services of Vietnamese, Tagalog, Nepali, Hindi and Urdu interpreters, as these are spoken by the minority foreigners living and working in Hong Kong. In private sector conferences, the main working languages are usually Putonghua and English. For large conferences it is quite common to have Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish and Russian interpreters as well.
Second, use of consecutive and simultaneous interpretation is equally prevalent in the private sector. For example, listed companies' results announcements might be conducted in simultaneous mode, while the question and answer session might be held in consecutive mode. Companies prefer this arrangement because consecutive interpretation allows them a bit more time to formulate answers while also maintaining stricter time control of the Q&A session. Simultaneous interpreting may be the rule in large conferences, but there are still many occasions where consecutive interpreting is used and preferred. Arbitration hearings, depositions and appeals still require the services of consecutive interpreters when accuracy is valued over speed.
Lastly, the author would like to make an observation that Hong Kong's unique geographical location makes it an ideal venue for hosting conferences. For example, software and pharmaceutical companies that need to conduct training or standardize drug testing protocol for various regions and countries, find it convenient to have participants from, say, Korea; Japan; Taiwan and China convene in Hong Kong for logistic and political reasons. Some organizers also like to host events before major international sporting events such as the Rugby Sevens and Macau Grand Prix.
In summary, consecutive and conference interpreting is very much active in both the public and private sector in Hong Kong. If one wishes to pursue an interpreting career in Hong Kong, especially in the private sector, one should therefore be adequately trained and prepared in both forms of interpreting.
(1) http://www.judiciary.gov.hk/en/other_info/fc_questions/pdf/ja_e_0708.pdf
Please refer to the end of page 22 of the PDF file.
(2) http://hkucsb.hku.hk:8080/csb/advertsys/ejob/jobdetail?id=13788&version=E
(3) http://www.csb.gov.hk/english/grade/ol/1475.html
First published 30 December 2007. Copyright of Pierre Wong.