The jobs crisis 就业危机(来自经济学人)

文章来源http://caijing360.blogspot.com/



翻译：Lucy

World economy

世界经济

The jobs crisis
就业危机

Mar 12th 2009
From The Economist print edition

It’s coming, whatever governments do; but they can make it better or worse
不管政府如何行动，就业危机终归会来临；各国政府的应对措施只能减轻或者加重危机

NOTHING evokes the misery of mass unemployment more than the photographs of the Depression. You can see it in the drawn faces of the men, in their shabby clothes, in their eyes. Their despair spawned political extremism that left a stain on society; but it also taught subsequent generations that public policy has a vital part in alleviating the suffering of those who cannot get work. Thanks to welfare schemes and unemployment benefits, many of which have their origins in those dark days, joblessness no longer plunges people into destitution, at least in the developed world.

再没有什么比大萧条时期的照片更能唤起人们对大量失业的痛苦回忆了。你能明显从当时人们疲惫的脸上，破旧的衣服上和忧虑的眼神中看到失业的痛楚。他们由绝望而生政治极端主义给整个社会流下了阴影，却也告诉了后代人，公共政策在减轻失业人群痛苦这一方面能够发挥重要作用。得益于现代的各种社会福利计划和失业补贴——这其中有一大部分是源自大萧条时期——失业再也不会使人们陷入赤贫了，至少在发达国家不会。

Not even the gloomiest predict that today’s slump will approach the severity of the Depression, which shrank America’s economy by more than a quarter, and put a quarter of the working-age population out of a job. But with the world in its deepest recession since the 1930s and global trade shrinking at its fastest pace in 80 years, the misery of mass unemployment looms nonetheless, and raises the big question posed in the Depression: what should governments do?

即便是最悲观的预测也不认为今天的经济危机会达到大萧条时期危机的严重程度，当时美国的经济缩水了近三成，四分之一的工作年龄人口无法就业。然而今天的世界正处于自20世纪30年代以来最严峻的经济衰退中，国际贸易成交量正以80年来最快的速度削减，大量失业的威胁似乎就在眼前，而大萧条时期提出的一个重要问题如今又摆在了面前：政府应该做出何种行动呢？

Join the queue

各国相继遭遇失业问题

In the rich world the job losses are starkest in America, where the recession began. Its flexible labour market has shed jobs since the downturn began in December 2007, including more than 600,000 in each of the past three months. The unemployment rate jumped to in February, the highest in a quarter-century. An American who loses his job today has less of a chance of finding another one than at any time since records began half a century ago. That is especially worrying when the finances of many households have come to depend on two full incomes.

发达国家中失业问题最为严重的当数美国——世界经济萧条的发源地。自2007年12月经济增长开始放慢以来，美国灵活的劳动力市场已经削减了440万个职位，仅在过去的三个月中每月的失业人数高达60万。二月份美国的失业率陡升至25年来的最高纪录——。据半个世纪以来的记录显示，今天的美国人，一旦失业将最难重新找到工作。这对依靠两份全额收入来维持财务的家庭来说尤其令人担忧。

But it is already clear that unemployment will strike hard far beyond America and Britain. In Japan output is plunging faster than in other rich economies. Although unemployment is low, rapid job losses among Japan’s army of temporary workers are exposing the unfairness of a two-tier labour market and straining an egalitarian society.

但是很明显的是，美国和英国以外的广大世界也遭到了失业问题的沉重打击。日本的经济下滑速度比任何发达国家都要快，尽管现在其失业率还很低，但临时工人的大量且快速失业暴露了日本双层劳工市场的极度不公平，让这个主张平等主义的国家社会气氛日渐紧张起来。

In Europe joblessness has grown fastest in places such as Spain and Ireland, where building booms have crashed, but has only begun to edge up elsewhere. The unemployment rates in many European countries are below America’s, but that may be because their more rigid labour markets adjust more slowly to falling demand. Given how fast European economies are shrinking, nobody doubts that worse lies ahead. By the end of 2010, unemployment in much of the rich world is likely to be above 10% .

在欧洲，失业率上升最快的要算建筑业泡沫刚刚破裂的西班牙和爱尔兰，但其他国家的失业问题也日益严峻。现在许多欧洲国家的失业率还低于美国，但是这很可能是因为这些国家的劳动力市场过于僵硬，还无法快速适应企业对劳动力需求的下降。考虑到欧洲经济下降的速度，没有人会否认“前路将更加艰辛”。到2010年底，绝大多数发达国家的失业率将升至10%以上。

In the emerging world the pattern will be different, but the outcome more painful. As trade shrinks, millions of workers are losing their foothold on the bottom rungs of the global supply chain. Poverty will rise as they sink into informal work or move back to the land. The World Bank expects some 53m people to fall below the level of extreme poverty this year .

发展中国家情况或有不同，但是结局却更加痛苦。随着国家贸易的萎缩，发展中国家数百万的工人将失去他们在全球供应链最后一级的立足点。一旦他们沦为非正式工人或重新开始耕作维生，贫穷将再次席卷。据世行预测，今年将有约5300万人再次成为极端贫困人口。

Politics dictates that governments must intervene energetically to help. That’s partly because capital has taken such a large share of profits for so many years that the pendulum is bound to swing back and partly because, having just given trillions of dollars to the banks, politicians will be under pressure to put vast amounts of money into saving jobs. But help cannot be measured in dollars alone. Badly designed policies can be self-defeating. After the recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s, Europe’s rigid labour-markets kept unemployment high for decades.

从政治学来说，政府必须积极干预，帮助人民度过就业难关。一方面因为经济萧条前的繁荣持续了多年，政府资金得到了不少好处，而如今风水轮流转，政府也应当分担责任；另一方面则因为政府刚刚向各大银行提供了数万亿美元的资助，这使得各国领导身处高压之下，也必须投入资金帮助拯救劳动力市场。但是单靠投入资金是远远不够的，还必须有正确的政策相佐。不恰当的政策只会是搬石头砸自己的脚。例如，20世纪70年代和80年代初的经济萧条之后，欧洲的失业率几十年居高不下，原因就在于其劳动力市场过于死板。

Governments are piling in with short-term help for workers. In America, which has one of the lowest social safety nets in the rich world, extending unemployment benefits was, rightly, part of the recent stimulus package. Japan is giving social assistance to “non regular” workers, a group that has long been ignored. In general, however, it makes more sense to pay companies to keep people in work than to subsidise unemployment. Many countries are topping up the earnings of workers on shortened weeks or forced leave.

各国政府正在为工人提供各种短期救助。在所有发达国家中，美国的社会安全网可谓“最不安全”。但其最近发布的经济刺激方案中，加大失业补助是一条重要措施。日本也在为临时工人提供社会援助，而在这之前，临时工人往往被政府忽视。然而总的来说，比起发放失业补助，直接资助公司以帮助其保留工作职位要明智得多。现在许多国家也开始为被缩减工时或被迫休假的工人提供补助。

These are sensible measures, so long as they are time-limited; for, in the short term, governments need to do all they can to sustain demand. But the jobs crisis, alas, is unlikely to be short-lived. Even if the recession ends soon (and there is little sign of that happening), the asset bust and the excessive borrowing that led to it are likely to overshadow the world economy for many years to come. Moreover, many of yesterday’s jobs, from Spanish bricklayer to Wall Street trader, are not coming back. People will have to shift out of old occupations and into new ones.

如果在时间上不会持续过久，这些都称得上明智的举措。就短期来说，政府必须尽全力维持就业。但可惜的是，就业危机却不会这么短命。即便经济萧条很快结束（这几乎不大可能），其罪魁祸首——房地产泡沫破裂和过度借贷还将在未来的很多年里给世界经济蒙上阴影。并且，许多危机前的工作职位——从西班牙的砖瓦匠到华尔街的经纪人——都将不复存在。许多人将不得不放弃老本行，进入新的领域。

A difficult dance

艰难的抉择

Over the next couple of years, politicians will have to perform a difficult policy U-turn; for, in the long term, they need flexible labour markets. That will mean abolishing job-subsidy programmes, taking away protected workers’ privileges and making it easier for businesses to restructure by laying people off. Countries such as Japan, with two-tier workforces in which an army of temporary workers with few protections toil alongside mollycoddled folk with many, will need to narrow that disparity by making the latter easier to fire.

未来的几年里，各国领导人将不得不面临政策的大转弯；因为，就长远来看，各国都需要灵活的劳动力市场。这就意味着必须取消工作补助项目，剥夺受其保护的工人的各种特权，使企业更容易通过裁员来进行重组。在日本等有着二元劳动力结构的国家，大量的临时工人得不到就业保护，而正式员工就如同温室里的花朵，常年“娇生惯养”。这些国家有必要改进就业政策，使正式员工也能被公司裁员，这样才能缩小两层劳动力大军之间的待遇差距。

The euphemism for that is “flexibility”. The bare truth is that the more easily jobs can be destroyed, the more easily new ones can be created. The programmes that help today, by keeping people in existing jobs, will tomorrow become a drag on the great adjustment that lies ahead. As time goes by, spending on keeping people in old jobs will need to be cut, and replaced with spending on training them for new ones. Governments will have to switch from policies to support demand to policies to make their labour markets more flexible. That is going to require fancy political footwork; but politicians will have to perform those steps, because if they fail to, they will stifle growth.

说得好听些，这样的劳动力市场才是“灵活”的市场。事实就是这样的，旧的工作职位越容易被撤销，新的就越容易被创造出来。今天，这些补助项目可以通过保留工作职位来起缓解作用；但在明天，它们就很可能成为必将来临的劳动力市场大调整的累赘。假以时间，政府必须缩减用在保留老职位上的开支，而加大力度支持企业为新职位培训员工。其政策重点也必须由维持市场用工需求转向使劳动力市场灵活化。这将需要各政府灵活设计应对政策，各国领导人也将不得不如此，因为如果不这样做，他们就是在阻碍经济增长。

However well governments design their policies, unemployment is going to rise sharply, for some time. At best it will blight millions of lives for years. The politicians’ task is to make sure the misery is not measured in decades.

但不管政府设计的政策如何完善，各国的失业率在未来的一段时间内还是会继续攀升，最乐观估计也将在未来的几年里影响到数百万人的生活。各国领导人的任务就是要确保大量失业的痛苦不会长时间持续。


文章来源http://caijing360.blogspot.com/