If a new study is true, life might be a little tougher for job seekers with a southern accent, and their dialect may cost them a huge portion of their earning potential.
The New York Post writes, “According to the study by the University of Chicago and the University of Munich, people with a Southern accent could lose out on thousands of dollars per year.
The research revealed that people with strong regional accents face a wage penalty of up to 20% compared to those who speak with a ‘standard accent.’
Another recent study found that 38% of job seekers admitted to ‘softening’ their regional accents during interviews because of negative stereotypes.
This study by the Writing Tips Institute found that applicants with a Southern accent were the fourth most likely to change their voice. People from Western New England, South Midland and New Jersey were the most likely to alter their accents.”
Fox Business reported that “The Writing Tips Institute’s study, which surveyed 3,000 people, also discovered the professions in which job applicants are more likely to change their accents.
Real Estate was the most likely industry where prospective employees change the way they speak, followed by tourism, public service, information technology, engineering, hospitality, finance, retail, healthcare and media.”
Tech must be one of the least discriminatory when it comes to accents because Florida and Texas have seen their economies and job markets boom over the past few years with jobs from that sector.
The Wall Street Journal noted, “Net tech employment in both Texas and Florida last year grew twice as fast as it did in California, including new software engineers, app developers and other tech workers entering the market, information-technology trade group CompTIA said in a report this week ahead of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report Friday.
Key attractions include more affordable housing markets, a lower cost of living and a ready availability of schools and other services. At the same time, the adoption of remote and hybrid work models at many companies has made tech jobs more portable.
“There’s been a boom in tech jobs and it’s booming more outside California,” said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management.
Jing Liao, chief administration officer at Solera Holdings Inc., an automotive-software maker based in Westlake, Texas, told WSJ her company has been growing their technology team for years now. Liao said, “she has had no trouble filling tech positions from a growing pool of local skilled workers. ‘We have found that Texas also has great school systems and has been producing more technology talent.”
Combined, both Florida and Texas have added over 20,000 tech workers recently.
[Read More: State Farm Leaving California]
