Do you think employment in America should require knowledge of the English language?

I'm not at all racist, but frankly, I'm tired of asking for assistance in a store and the employee says, "Huh? I a no speaka English."

It would be the same if I moved to a different country and obtained employment - I'd be required to speak the language of that country... why is America so lenient? It makes me feel like the country has lost its backbone.

Yes.im tired of phoning up helplines here and getting transfered to indians,not because i dislike them,but because i cant understand them.

This doesn't happens only in US or Canada, this happens all over the world. In my country, there are so many people from other countries, who work in stores etc, but I can barely understand what they're saying. I bet the same happens in Japan, when we (Europeans or Americans) go there and try to get a job.
I'm not saying that it's a good thing, I'm just pointing out that this happens all over the globe.

noelia :

Oh, I didn't know it was like that in other parts of the world.

Hmm, at least I'm informed of that now then. It's irritating nonetheless when I have to spend about 10 minutes or so finding an employee who understands what I'm saying.

Oh well I guess.. it just tries my patience, but that's probably my problem lol; I'll need to work on having more patience.

Yeah, sometimes it's annoying, but I guess it's a good way  for all of us to learn how to have more patience

It's really frustrating when people who's main job is to speak to people all day can't even speak the native language of the country. I don't think that people who's second language is English should be unemployed, or anything, but the establishments could at least put them somewhere that doesn't force them to confuse every single customer that comes in/phones the store for that day. ;

Any company that hires people who don't speak english are most likely the typical corporation who outsource American jobs with foreigners so they can get more money.

It's hard to find a customer service agent who isn't from india. I'm pretty sure that most corporations these days pay you based on what language and country your in rather then what degree you got.

It should be illegal to outsource corporate jobs to other countries, if they can't afford to pay American workers then they should not be in business in first place. Making it so you can only get a job if you speak english would be near impossible to achieve at this point unless you run your own business. The only real fix that would help America would be to eliminate corporate outsourcing. That would not eliminate the non-english speaking employee issue but it would at least give America more jobs.

If enough people complain about communication issues then they will be forced to change. But since no one probably complains about that to the company itself then I dont see it being fixed anytime soon.

Minimum wage could probably be as high as $15-$20 an hour if companies followed the "1 great employee = 3 good employees". Sooner or later everything will be done by machines. King Soopers utilizes self-check outs which has multiple language options and THAT is a good idea in my opinion makes everyone happy except for people who want jobs. Oh well I would rather have a machine take my job then let some non-english speaking person take it.

Even though I pretty much agree that You should learn to speak English when you get to the United States, the reason it isn't happening and why it isn't required to get a Job, is because the USA HAS NO OFFICIAL LANGUAGE. That's why people that speak Spanish, the main language used other than English, aren't REQUIRED to learn English. There have been attempts to make English the official language, but it never passes congress. For the Love of God I have no idea why, but I do believe it needs to happen so that we can better communicate within our own country.

It will never happen because the Founding Fathers would not have wanted it. The only reason that English is still spoken in this country at all is because we were too lazy to all learn a new language, though they did change a lot of the spelling and such to try and alter it (Ben Franklin had a lot of other ideas that thankfully never got used, really odd stuff). You have no idea how high anti-Anglo sentiment was during and after the Revolution. It's why we see Columbus as a cultural icon (because he had no connection to England).

That being said, I grew up in an area where 98% of the population spoke Spanish, yet I've never in my life had a situation where an employee didn't at least know a bit of the English language or make the effort. They still spoke in Spanish when they could because it was easier for them, but I've never had "no speek English" happen.