每日一句：2014考研英语第六十五句5.10

王慧 · 发表于 2013-5-11 08:19

大学生就业的问题不只是中国才有，全世界都会有，最新的一期经济学人中就写了这样一篇文章，和大家一起分享。今天的句子不用抄了。争取能看完！文章不算长，写的很不错！很客观！
对了大家评论的时候告诉下我你们在做什么吧：）
Generation jobless
无业的一代

“YOUNG people ought not to be idle. It is very bad for them,” said Margaret Thatcher in 1984. She was right: there are few worse things

that society can do to its young than to leave them in limbo. Those who start their careers on the dole are more likely to have lower wages

and more spells of joblessness later in life, because they lose out on the chance to acquire skills and self-confidence in their formative

years.

“年轻人不该游手好闲，他们这样没好处。”1984年撒切尔夫人如是说。她说对了：一个社会最糟糕的状态便是让年轻人茫然无助。那些靠救济金过活的人工资

更低，人生后期也会经历更多次的失业。因为他们在性格决定的时期就已经失去了机会，没有学会技能和自信。

Yet more young people are idle than ever. OECD figures suggest that 26m 15- to 24-year-olds in developed countries are not in

employment, education or training; the number of young people without a job has risen by 30% since 2007. The International Labour

Organisation reports that 75m young people globally are looking for a job. World Bank surveys suggest that 262m young people in emerging

markets are economically inactive. Depending on how you measure them, the number of young people without a job is nearly as large as the

population of America (311m).

然而，今天仍有更多的年轻人失业。经合组织的数据显示，发达国家有2600万15至24岁的年轻人未受教育、培训并且处于失业状态之中；2007年后，

无业年轻人的数量上升了30%。国际劳工组织报告，全球有7500万的年轻人正在找工作。世界银行调查显示，新兴市场有26200万年轻人在经济方面无所作为。按

读者自己的计算标准来说，无业青年的数量跟美国人口数量一样多（31100万）。

Two factors play a big part. First, the long slowdown in the West has reduced demand for labour, and it is easier to put off hiring young

people than it is to fire older workers. Second, in emerging economies population growth is fastest in countries with dysfunctional labour

markets, such as India and Egypt.

有两点因素发挥着很大的作用。第一，西方国家长期的缓滞减少了用工需求，年轻人比老员工更容易解雇。第二，在新兴经济体中，有些国家的劳动市场不但有

缺陷，而且人口增长却最为迅猛，比如印度和埃及。

The result is an “arc of unemployment”, from southern Europe through north Africa and the Middle East to South Asia, where the rich world’

s recession meets the poor world’s youthquake. The anger of the young jobless has already burst onto the streets in the Middle East. Violent

crime, generally in decline in the rich world, is rising in Spain, Italy and Portugal—countries with startlingly high youth unemployment.

结果是产生了一条“失业孤线”，从南欧经北非和中东到南亚，而在南亚，富裕国家的衰退引发了贫穷国家年轻人骚动。在中东，这些无业青年走上街头发泄愤

怒。暴力犯罪虽然在富裕国家总体上呈现下降趋势，但在西班牙、意大利和葡萄牙呈现上升趋势，而这些国家的年轻人失业率高得惊人。

Will growth give them a job?
经济发展能带给他们工作吗？

The most obvious way to tackle this problem is to reignite growth. That is easier said than done in a world plagued by debt, and is anyway

only a partial answer. The countries where the problem is worst (such as Spain and Egypt) suffered from high youth unemployment even when

their economies were growing. Throughout the recession companies have continued to complain that they cannot find young people with the right

skills. This underlines the importance of two other solutions: reforming labour markets and improving education. These are familiar

prescriptions, but ones that need to be delivered with both a new vigour and a new twist.

Youth unemployment is often at its worst in countries with rigid labour markets. Cartelised industries, high taxes on hiring, strict rules

about firing, high minimum wages: all these help condemn young people to the street corner. South Africa has some of the highest unemployment

south of the Sahara, in part because it has powerful trade unions and rigid rules about hiring and firing. Many countries in the arc of youth

unemployment have high minimum wages and heavy taxes on labour. India has around 200 laws on work and pay.

Deregulating labour markets is thus central to tackling youth unemployment. But it will not be enough on its own. Britain has a flexible

labour market and high youth unemployment. In countries with better records, governments tend to take a more active role in finding jobs
for

those who are struggling. Germany, which has the second-lowest level of youth unemployment in the rich world, pays a proportion of the wages

of the long-term unemployed for the first two years. The Nordic countries provide young people with “personalised plans” to get them into

employment or training. But these policies are too expensive to reproduce in southern Europe, with their millions of unemployed, let alone

the emerging world. A cheaper approach is to reform labour-hungry bits of the economy—for example, by making it easier for small businesses

to get licences, or construction companies to get approval for projects, or shops to stay open in the evening.

The graduate glut
过剩的毕业生

Across the OECD, people who left school at the earliest opportunity are twice as likely to be unemployed as university graduates. But it is

unwise to conclude that governments should simply continue with the established policy of boosting the number of people who graduate
from

university. In both Britain and the United States many people with expensive liberal-arts degrees are finding it impossible to get decent

jobs. In north Africa university graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as non-graduates.

What matters is not just number of years of education people get, but its content. This means expanding the study of science and
technology

and closing the gap between the world of education and the world of work—for example by upgrading vocational and technical education and by

forging closer relations between companies and schools. Germany’s long-established system of vocational schooling and apprenticeships does

just that. Other countries are following suit: South Korea has introduced “meister” schools, Singapore has boosted technical colleges, and

Britain is expanding apprenticeships and trying to improve technical education.

Closing the gap will also require a change of attitude from business. Some companies, ranging from IBM and Rolls-Royce to McDonald’s and

Premier Inn, are revamping their training programmes, but the fear that employees will be poached discourages firms from investing in the

young. There are ways of getting around the problem: groups of employers can co-operate with colleges to design training courses, for

example. Technology is also reducing the cost of training: programmes designed around computer games can give youngsters some virtual

experience, and online courses can help apprentices combine on-the-job training with academic instruction.

The problem of youth unemployment has been getting worse for several years. But there are at last some reasons for hope. Governments are

trying to address the mismatch between education and the labour market. Companies are beginning to take more responsibility for investing in

the young. And technology is helping democratise education and training. The world has a real chance of introducing an education-and-training

revolution worthy of the scale of the problem.