評論
打印
Leaders
社論
Riding high
春風得意
In the rich world the era of sharp-edged capitalism is giving way to a golden age for labour
在發達國家，尖銳的資本主義時代正在退位讓賢于勞動大軍的黃金時代
In the popular imagination the past four decades were wonderful for the owners of capital and miserable for labour. The rich world’s workers endured competition from trade, relentless technological change, more unequal wages and tepid recoveries from recessions. Investors and companies enjoyed expanding global markets, liberalised finance and low corporate taxes. Even before covid-19, this caricature of broken labour markets was mistaken. Today, as the economy emerges from the pandemic, a reversal of the primacy of capital over labour beckons—and it will come sooner than you think.
在公眾心目中，過去四十年對資本所有者來說是美好的，但對勞動者來說卻是痛苦的。貿易競爭、無休止的技術革新、工資不平等加劇以及經濟衰退后的復蘇乏力一直折磨著富裕國家的打工人們。而投資者和公司卻享受著全球市場的擴張、金融的自由化和較低的企業稅。甚至在新冠疫情之前，這種對崩潰的勞動力市場的滑稽描述也是錯誤的。如今，伴隨全球經濟從疫情中復蘇，資本優先于勞動力的局勢正在逆轉，而且其到來將遠比你想象的要快。
It might seem premature to predict a wonderful world of work only a year on from a labour-market catastrophe. But America is showing how rapidly jobs can come back as the virus recedes. In the spring of 2020 the country’s unemployment rate was nearly 15%. Now it is already just 6% after a year containing five of the ten best months for hiring in history. Public perceptions of how easy it is to find a job have already recovered to levels that it took nearly a decade to reach after the global financial crisis. And even in Europe, which is suffering a third wave of infections, the labour market is beating forecasts as economies adapt to virus-containment measures.
預測打工人將迎來美好的職場似乎還為時過早，畢竟現在距離勞動力市場困境只有一年的時間。但美國正在展示隨著新冠病毒的消退，他們能以多快的速度迅速恢復就業機會。在2020年春天，美國的失業率接近15%。一年后（在有史以來招聘情況最好的10個月中，有5個月涵蓋在這一年里）的美國失業率如今僅為6%。公眾對找工作有多容易的看法，已經恢復到全球金融危機后近十年才達到的水平。即使是在正遭受第三波感染沖擊的歐洲，隨著各經濟體逐漸適應病毒控制措施，勞動力市場的情況也在超出預期。
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