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Finance & economics
財經板塊
Labour shortages: Help wanted
勞動力短缺：急聘員工
Houses are in high demand. So too are the people who build them.
房屋需求量很大。建造房屋的工人需求量也同樣很大。
DON HORTON, founder of America’s largest housebuilder, never thought he would have to turn away business in Texas.
美國最大的房屋建筑商的創始人唐·霍頓(DON HORTON)從未想過，有一天他會被迫放棄在德克薩斯州的業務。
Until recently he could not build homes in the state fast enough.
直到最近，他在該州的建房速度明顯跟不上了。
Now his firm is restricting sales as industry-wide shortages of labour and building materials such as timber, slow construction and inflate costs.
現在，由于整個行業勞動力和建筑材料(如木材)短缺、施工緩慢、成本上漲，他的公司正在限制房屋銷量。
The combination of these constraints and surging demand for housing has led to staggering rises in house prices.
銷量收緊，加上住房需求激增，就導致房價大幅上漲。
According to figures published on August 31st, the Case-Shiller national house-price index was 18.6% higher in June than a year earlier—the third record-breaking rise in as many months.
根據8月31日公布的數據，6月份Case-Shiller全國房價指數比去年同期上漲了18.6%，這是多個月以來第三次打破紀錄的上漲。
But although the shortages of materials are expected to ease next year, skilled labour will be harder to find.
雖然明年材料短缺有望緩解，但技術工人更會一人難求。
As covid-19 spread and countries locked down, the construction workforce took a big hit.
隨著新冠肺炎的傳播和各國的封鎖，建筑工人受到了很大的沖擊。
In America it shrank by nearly 15% in 2020, wiping out four years of job gains.
在美國，2020年建筑工人數量下降了近15%，抵消了四年來的增量。
But it has yet to recover fully, even as demand for housing has been turbo-charged by low interest rates and enthusiasm for bigger homes.
但它還沒有完全恢復，即使低利率和對更大住房的追求導致住房需求大大增加。
Around 88% of American contractors say they are struggling to find workers, leaving nearly 300,000 roles vacant.
大約88%的美國承包商說他們很難找到工人，留下近30萬個職位空缺。
Having decelerated in 2020, wage growth is now picking up.
2020年工資增長減速后，目前正在恢復增速。
Britain has the most vacancies in two decades, with two-thirds of construction firms finding it difficult to hire bricklayers and carpenters.
英國出現了20年來最多的職位空缺，三分之二的建筑公司很難雇傭到磚瓦工和木匠。
Half of all French construction firms report facing difficulties with recruitment, making it the country’s worst-affected sector, and a fifth of German building and civil-engineering companies say they lack skilled workers.
法國一半的建筑公司報告稱面臨招聘困難，這使其成為該國受影響最嚴重的行業，五分之一的德國建筑和土木工程公司稱他們缺乏熟練工人。
The industry’s hiring struggles in part mirror the wider labour shortages affecting much of the rich world.
建筑行業的招聘困境在一定程度上反映了影響許多發達國家的更為廣泛的勞動力短缺問題。
As in other sectors, a fear of the virus and an ability to fall back on benefits and savings might explain why the unemployed have been slow to return to work.
與其他行業一樣，對病毒的恐懼以及依靠福利和儲蓄能力，或許是失業者不急于重返工作崗位的原因。
Travel restrictions across national and provincial borders to curb the pandemic have hit the construction sector, which relies heavily on migrants, especially hard.
為遏制疫情而實施的跨國、跨省邊境的旅行限制，對嚴重依賴移民的建筑業造成了打擊。
(That has been starkest in China and India, where migrants account for four-fifths and one-third of construction workers, respectively.)
(這在中國和印度尤為明顯，這兩國的移民分別占建筑工人的五分之四和三分之一。)
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