The prominence of English in Danish workplaces: Approaching a bilingual labour market

Abstract

We investigate the use of English in Danish workplaces using a representative questionnaire survey (n ≈ 854). Previous qualitative studies show that English is a frequently used lingua franca in white-collar workplaces, but not to the same extent in other types of work. Also, while many Danes have strong English competences, not everyone is able to use English. In order to better understand how much and where English is used in the labour market we investigate 1) How often Danes use English at work 2) How English use at work is related to location, age, education, industry, job title and job tasks. We find that an overwhelming majority of respondents use English at work, but that there are noticeable differences between educational groups, industries and job titles. Managers and IT workers are frequent users of English at work, whereas teachers and healthcare workers report relatively low frequency of use. Contrary to previous studies, we do not find a simple correlation between level of education and use of English. The results point to a labour market where English is a part of everyday working life for the large majority, but also to certain industries where the role of English is limited. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results in terms of labour market inclusion and exclusion.