my $found = 0;

#for each line
while ($line = <EMPLOYEES>) {

    #remove the carriage return
    chomp $line;

    #splits the line between tabs and get the different elements
    ($name, $city, $language) = split /\t/, $line;

    next unless $language =~ /$search/;

    $found++;
    print "$name can speak " . ($search) .  " and lives in " . ($city) . ".\n";
}
print "Found $found results.\n";