At The Multilingual Project (TMP), a key pillar of our research agenda is analyzing the economic impact of multilingualism in Colorado and beyond and leveraging that data to seamlessly connect multilingual K-12, postsecondary, and workforce systems.
Supply & Demand: The Growing Spanish-speaking Workforce Gap
The 2024 Colorado Talent Pipeline Report (TPR) identified Spanish as one of the top 10 most in-demand technical skills among Colorado employers. It also ranked among the top 10 skills listed by job seekers, with:
- 23,158 active Colorado job postings seeking Spanish (June 2023–June 2024)
- 77,261 active Colorado job seekers reporting Spanish as a skill during the same period
The 2024 TPR provides a foundational understanding of the volume of Colorado’s Spanish-speaking workforce. With this data, businesses, institutions of higher education, advocacy organizations, policymakers, state government leaders, and other stakeholders can make informed decisions leading to more robust and responsive outcomes for Spanish-speaking communities across the state.
Consistent with the 2023 TPR figures, which listed nearly 20,000 job ads seeking Spanish as a technical skill, these numbers highlight a sustained growth and increasing supply and demand gap among Colorado’s Spanish-speaking workforce.
With over three times as many job seekers as there are opportunities for them, it’s never been more important to investigate the economic impact of multilingualism in Colorado.
Expanding Multilingual Workforce Participation Data
At The Multilingual Project, we leverage critical data sources like the Colorado Talent Pipeline Report to investigate the most prominent issues facing the state’s multilingual workforce; and to identify the structural gaps that limit its full potential.
While the TPR provides a foundational snapshot, several key questions remain to seamlessly align multilingual education and workforce systems:
- What sectors proportionally represent the growing Spanish-speaking workforce?
- Among job seekers, how many hold Spanish-specific credentials, and how are institutions of higher education preparing talent?
- What proportion of job seekers gained their language skills through lived experience, coursework, and/or immersion?
These are not niche details, but foundational elements to truly building a more robust and responsive multilingual education system. Without this clarity, institutions of higher education are left guessing, and policy solutions fall short of meeting the very workforce they aim to support.
The Cost of Misalignment
The growing supply and demand gap in Colorado’s Spanish-speaking workforce points to a broader issue of systemic misalignment. While supply continues to grow, the systems designed to support, credential, and connect multilingual talent to job opportunities have not evolved in stride.
This imbalance has wide-reaching implications. Job seekers with Spanish skills find themselves navigating a labor market that does not consistently recognize or compensate their language abilities, leading to underemployment, missed opportunities for upward economic mobility, and a disconnect between the in-demand skills they offer and the roles and compensation available to them.
Moreover, institutions of higher education and employers lack the tools to effectively measure, credential, and connect skills in ways that are structured and scalable, leading to fragmented pathways, inconsistent hiring practices, and limited incentives to invest in language education or recognize existing bilingual talent, ultimately reinforcing the system’s misalignment.
The time to expand multilingual workforce participation data is now. Without it, the disconnect only deepens. Institutions can’t align their programs to real-world workforce outcomes, and employers can’t reliably assess or compensate the language skills they depend on. As long as these systems remain siloed, Colorado’s Spanish-speaking workforce will continue to be underleveraged, despite the value it brings.
More comprehensive, disaggregated data would allow:
- Institutions of higher education to demonstrate the value of Spanish credentials, align programs with workforce needs, and build career-connected pathways for students;
- Employers to assess proficiency more consistently, recognize language credentials, and design compensation structures that reflect the value of bilingual skills;
- Advocacy organizations to align K-12 multilingual student outcomes with meaningful career pathways;
- Policymakers and state government leaders to develop targeted initiatives, build stronger pipelines, and ensure multilingual talent is fully leveraged in Colorado’s economy.
Translating Research into Action: TMP’s Role
At The Multilingual Project, we believe that creating a more robust and responsive multilingual education system— one that seamlessly connects K–12, postsecondary, and workforce systems—is the path forward.
We operate at the intersection of research and language access, generating insights on the economic impact of multilingualism and helping the organizations, businesses, communities, and schools we work with ensure their work reaches multilingual audiences.
Because Colorado’s multilingual workforce isn’t lacking talent—it’s lacking alignment. And until we connect what learners bring, what institutions offer, and how employers recognize those skills, the state’s Spanish-speaking talent will remain underleveraged.
Our mission is to change that.
Because multilingualism isn’t just about speaking multiple languages, it’s about building bridges. Between people, across systems, and throughout communities.
It’s about going beyond words— and into worlds.
The Multilingual Project (TMP) is a nonpartisan, multimedia, research, advocacy, and translation company on a mission to reshape and reimagine a more robust and responsive multilingual education system in Colorado and beyond.