2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》西方国家的失业情况

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　Unemployment in the West

　　西方国家的失业情况

　　The quest for jobs

　　追逐工作

　　It is not impossible for politicians to reduce theWest’s frighteningly high unemployment levels

　　对于政客们来说，降低西方国家令人为之恐惧的高失业率并不是不可能的

　　A LITTLE geographical imagination helps to conveythe scale of joblessness in the West. If the 44mpeople who are unemployed in the mainly rich members of the OECD lived in one country, itspopulation would be similar to Spain’s. In Spain itself, which has the West’s highest joblessrate (21%), the number of people without work matches the combined population of Madridand Barcelona. In America the 14m people officially jobless would form the fifth-most-populousstate in the union. Add in the 11m “underemployed”, who are working less than they would like,and it is the size of Texas.

　　一张小的地理图片便能有助于映射出西方国家的失业情况。在经济合作组织中，如果一些主要的发达成员国有4400万失业人口居住在一个国家，这就相当于西班牙的总人口数。而就西班牙本身而言却有着西方国家最高的失业率，达到21%。这些没有工作的人口加起来相当于皇家马德里和巴塞罗那两城市人口的总和。在美国，官方统计的失业人口为1400万，足以组成该国的第五大州。另外还有1100万未充分就业的人口，这相当于田纳西州的人口规模。

　　The landscape is not uniformly bleak. Germany, for example, now has a lower jobless ratethan before the financial crisis. But in most of the rich world the proportion of peopleunemployed, though down a bit from its peak in 2009, is still alarmingly high, even as fearsmount that several countries may be slipping back into recession. And the human cost of theeconomic crisis is paid largely by those who are out of work, for joblessness increasesdepression, divorce, substance abuse and pretty much everything that can go wrong in a life.

　　情况并不都是惨不忍睹的。例如，德国较金融危机之前相比，如今失业率却相对较低。但是在大多数富裕国家，失业人口的比重较2009年顶峰时相比，尽管有所降低，但仍然居高不下，令人担忧，甚至一些国家随着恐惧的加深，会再次滑落到经济衰退时期。经济危机中人类所付出的代价主要有失业者们“买账”，他们的抑郁症状增加，离婚率上升，滥用物质，很多东西会使他们的一生误入歧途。

　　Worse, today’s joblessness is a particularly dangerous sort. A disproportionate share of thoseout of work are young, and youth unemployment leaves more scars, in terms of lower futurewages and greater likelihood of future unemployment (see article(http://www.economist.com/node/21528614) ). Joblessness is also becoming more chronic. InAmerica, famous for its flexible labour market, the average jobless spell now lasts 40 weeks,up from 17 in 2007. In Italy half of those without work have been so for more than a year.Long-term unemployment is harder to cure, as people’s skills atrophy and they becomedetached from the workforce. Its shadow lingers, reducing future growth rates, damagingpublic finances and straining social order for years to come.

　　更为糟糕的是，当今的失业是一个特别危险的因素。由于失业造成的分配不公“摊”在年轻人身上，考虑到未来的低工资和可能性较高的失业，年轻时期的失业情形留下了更深的伤疤。失业也正在变得极重难返。以灵活市场就业出名的美国如今平均失业时间会持续40个周，与2007年的17个周相比有所上升。在意大利，一半的失业者遭遇这种情形不止一年。由于人们的技术会不断“萎缩”，而他们又变得与世(劳动者)隔绝，所以长期的失业很难“治愈”。阴影—未来的经济增长率有所下降、公共财政遭到损坏及未来的社会秩序变的歪曲—挥之不去。

　　This mess will not be fixed quickly. Even if growthaccelerates, unemployment will remain worryinglyhigh for several years. Many remedies, such asretraining workers, take time. But that only makes itall the more shocking that politicians have done solittle. America is stuck in a sterile debate, with theleft claiming that the government is not spendingenough, while the right insists that big governmentis destroying jobs. An increasingly unpopularBarack Obama was due to address Congress on thesubject just after The Economist went to press (seearticle (http://www.economist.com/node/21528659) ). Across the Atlantic many of theresponses to the euro crisis (see article (http://www.economist.com/node/21528629)) seemdesigned to drive up joblessness. The West’s leaders can and must do better.

　　这种杂乱无章的局面不会立即得到解决。即使经济增长加速，失业率在未来几年内仍会居高不下，令人堪忧。许多像再次培训工人这样的解决方案非常耗时。然而那样做只会使情况更加糟糕，而政客们做的非常少。美国依然沉浸在毫无结果的争论中，“左”派分子宣称政府花钱不够，而“右”派分子坚持声称庞大的政府计划正在损坏工作。就在本期《经济学家》出版后，越来越不受欢迎的美国总统巴拉克奥巴马就这一主题向国会发表演讲。为了抬高失业情形，环大西洋的许多国家对欧元危机的反应似乎是故意的。西方国家领导人能够也必须做得更加出色。

　　Go for growth

　　一切为了增长

　　The immediate priority should be supporting demand—or at least not doing harm to it. Theleft is right on one thing: the main cause of the current high joblessness is the severity of thelast recession and the weakness of the subsequent recovery. Yet the West’s economies haveembarked on contractionary policies. In some cases the fault lies with monetary policy: theEuropean Central Bank should reverse its recent rate rises. But the main culprit is a collective,premature shift to fiscal austerity by governments.

　　眼下应该将重点放在支持需求上—或至少不能做不利于需求增长的事。“左”派的观点在此是正确的。当前企高不下的失业率应主要归结为上次经济衰退的严重性和随之而来疲软的经济复苏。然而西方经济体却实施收缩银根的政策。在一些情况下，错误就产生于货币政策：欧洲央行应该扭转它最近上扬的汇率。但是最主要的罪魁祸首是各国政府实施集体的不成熟的向财政紧缩的转变。

　　As this newspaper has repeatedly argued, politicians need to strike a bargain with the bondmarkets: combine policies that cushion growth now with measures that will bring deficits undercontrol in the medium term. Raise the retirement age, for instance, and that leaves more roomto stimulate growth in the short term. A minimal test of Mr Obama’s jobs agenda will bewhether it is big enough to counter the fiscal tightening, equivalent to 2% of GDP, that isslated for next year.

　　由于信息被不断的争论，政客们需要和债券市场达成协议：将缓解增长的政策与控制财政赤字在中期内相结合。例如，提高退休年龄及在短期内腾出更多“空间”以刺激增长。对奥巴马工作日程变最低的测试便是它是否大到足以抵抗财政紧缩的程度，那相当于国内生产总值的2%，明年将会实施。