評論
打印
Professional and business services
專業和商業服務
To the rescue
英國經濟的救世主
Britain's new champions are bean-counters and PowerPoint artists
會計師和PPT藝術家們成為英國各行業中的新貴
Dress-down Friday
不用穿正裝的日子
IN HIS budget speech in 2011, George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, laid out a new vision for Britain's economy. Finance would no longer race ahead of other sectors; a “march of the makers” would see manufacturing resurge. Three years later, the economy is rebalancing—but not as he thought it would.
英國財政大臣喬治·奧斯本（George Osborne） 在他2011年的財政預算中曾勾畫出英國經濟發展的新藍圖。金融行業將不再領跑其他經濟領域； “制造商們的快速發展”將確保制造業的復興。三年后的今天，英國的經濟的確正發生著轉變，但卻并非如他所想。
As expected, Britain's financial-services industry remains sickly. It employs 56,000 fewer people than before the crisis, according to a report published on March 31st by the Confederation of British Industry, an umbrella group, and PwC, an accountancy firm. Nor are financial services rebounding as the economy recovers. Figures from the Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator, suggest that, excluding back-office jobs, the number of bankers has fallen by more than 10% since the crisis, reaching the lowest figure for a decade in 2013.
如預期的一樣，金融股服務行業依舊萎靡不振。根據傘形組織英國工商業聯合會（CBI）和普華永道（PwC）會計公司3月31日聯合發布的報告，相比金融危機爆發前，英國金融服務業的從業人員減少了五萬六千人。 經濟復蘇也沒有帶來金融服務業的回暖。來自監管機構—金融行為市場管理局（FCA）的數據顯示：自金融危機以來， 不包括行政工作在內，2013年銀行從業者人數已經減少了超過10%，達到了近十年來的最低水平。
Manufacturing is starting to return. Yet on April 8th the Office for National Statistics said that factory output is still 8.2% lower than in 2008. Industrial closures have continued since the end of the recession—Dunlop, a tyremaker, says it will close its factory in Birmingham next month after 125 years of production in the city. Though industries such as carmaking are reviving, that may be more thanks to falling wages than to increased productivity.
制造業確有恢復的跡象。然而，4月8日英國國家統計局（ONS）卻宣布，工廠產量仍比2008年低了8點二個百分點。蕭條末期的工廠倒閉潮仍在繼續—輪胎制造商鄧祿普（Dunlop）表示，下月他們將關閉擁有125年生產歷史的伯明翰（Birmingham）工廠。盡管汽車制造等行業已有起色，但這似乎得歸功于下降的薪資水平而不是提高的生產力。
Instead, professional and business services are picking up the slack (see chart). Firms in this industry—which includes accountants and consultants as well as outfits that run call centres and other stuff essential to businesses—now contribute 27% more to GDP than at the start of the recovery, and have increased staff numbers by 13%. Management consultancies have done particularly well. Their revenues have grown by 24% since the crisis, according to Alan Leaman of the MCA, an industry body. That has encouraged accountancy and legal firms to get into the whiteboards-and-flipcharts business too.
相反，專業和商業服務成了挺身而出收拾殘局的人（如圖所示）。包括會計、咨詢公司，以及呼叫中心等提供其他必要商業服務的公司在內，該行業GDP已經比經濟復蘇初期增長了超過27%，從業者人數也上漲了十三個百分點。 管理咨詢領域表現尤為突出。來自行業協會——英國管理咨詢協會（MCA）的艾倫·利曼（Alan Leaman）稱，自金融危機以來，其營業收入增長了24%。這鼓勵了會計和法律事務所也做起了這一“紙上談兵”的生意。
Much of the new demand is from abroad, says David Sproul, the boss of Deloitte, an accountancy firm. Business-services exports have risen 21% since the recovery began. Britain's trade surplus in services has doubled to 5% of GDP—the second-largest in the world, after America's. Architects now earn over 50% more from exports than they did in 2009. Around half of the world's legal exports are British. Many new clients are in Asia and the Middle East, where Britain's professional services are valued even more highly than its financial ones.
德勤（Deloitte）會計師事務所的老板，大衛·斯普洛爾（David Sproul）說，新增的市場需求大都來自海外。自從經濟復蘇開始，商業服務出口已增加了21%。英國的服務業貿易順差已經翻了一番達到了國內生產總值的5%, 成為僅次于美國的全球第二大服務貿易輸出國。與2009年相比，建筑師們的對外貿易收入增長了超過50%。全球法務貿易輸出中，約有一半來自英國。許多新增客戶都來自亞洲和中東地區。比起英國的金融服務，這些國家和地區更認可其專業服務。
This success is reshaping both the capital and the country. So many accountants and consultants now throng the streets around Shoe Lane, in central London, that some have taken to calling it “Deloitte town”. Large business-services clusters mean the economies of London and Manchester are probably performing better than those of Edinburgh and Leeds, which rely more on finance, says Richard Holt at Capital Economics, a consultancy.
該行業的成功也重塑了倫敦和整個英國。如今太多的會計師和咨詢師們聚集在位于倫敦市中心的鞋巷（Shoe Lane），以至于有些人已經稱那里為“德勤城”。來自咨詢公司凱投宏觀（Capital Economics）的理查德·霍爾特（Richard Holt）說：大型商業服務公司的聚集表明倫敦和曼徹斯特的經濟狀況很有可能比依賴于金融業的愛丁堡和利茲好。
And more British manufacturers are selling services with their products, according to Tim Baines at Aston University. Boosters speak awkwardly of “manuservicing”, but they may have a point. Rolls-Royce now earns more from tasks such as managing clients' procurement strategies and maintaining the aerospace engines it sells than it does from making them.
此外，據英國阿斯頓大學（Aston Univeristy)的蒂姆·貝恩斯（Tim Baines）說，如今有更多制造商與其產品一起銷售服務。支持者們簡單粗暴地稱其為“造服”，然而他們確實有點兒道理。如今勞斯萊斯（Rolls-Royce）從管理客戶采購策略和維護航天發動機等服務中賺到的錢已經超過了其生產產品所帶來的收益。
Cynics say box-tickers have benefited lavishly from the weighty stacks of regulation that have been pumped out since the crisis. But whereas earnings from finance and manufacturing are volatile, a bigger business-services industry should steady the economy. Since 1985 the sector's share of output has grown almost every year, according to the Work Foundation, a think-tank. It even created jobs during the recession. Bean-counting and data-mining are not glamorous occupations. But they do pay the bills.
憤世嫉俗者們認為，抱殘守缺的人們已經從自經濟危機以來涌現出的繁文縟節式的規章制度中獲得了極大的利益。但鑒于金融和制造業帶來的利益不穩定，更大規模的商業服務行業應該能夠使經濟穩定發展。智庫工作基金會（Work Foundation）稱，自1985年以來，商業服務行業在總產值中所占份額幾乎是每年都有所增長。甚至在基金蕭條時期，該行業也創造了就業機會。會計和數據挖掘并不是什么富有魅力的職業。但是她們確實是能賺錢的差事。譯者：邵靈玲 校對：王穎
譯文屬譯生譯世
