評論
打印
Finance & economics
財經板塊
The jobs boom: Too much of a good thing
就業潮：好事過頭了
Are labour markets in the rich world too tight?
發達國家的勞動力市場是否過于緊張?
Last month Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, identified the most uncomfortable trade-off in economics.
上個月，美聯儲主席杰羅姆·鮑威爾指出了經濟學中最令人不安的平衡。
“Today’s labour market”, he said at a press conference, is “tight to an unhealthy level”. In most places and at most times a fall in unemployment, or a rise in the number of people in work, is welcome.
他在一次新聞發布會上說，“現在的勞動力市場太緊張了，是一種不健康的狀態?！痹诖蠖鄶档胤胶痛蠖鄶禃r候，失業率的下降或就業人數的上升都是正常的。
But labour markets can become too strained, creating worker shortages that stop production and cause wages to spiral, which can feed into overall inflation.
但勞動力市場可能過于緊張，工人短缺，從而導致生產停止，工資上漲，進而引發整體通脹。
Mr Powell fears that America has crossed the threshold from good-tight to bad-tight, one reason why the Fed is signalling that higher interest rates are on the way. Increasingly, though, labour markets elsewhere in the rich world are also straining at the seams.
鮑威爾擔心美國已經跨過了從“良性緊張”到“惡性緊張”的紅線，這也是美聯儲發出加息信號的原因之一。然而，其他發達國家的勞動力市場也越來越緊張。
Almost nobody saw this coming. When the pandemic struck in 2020, most economists believed that the rich world was in for a long spell of high unemployment, similar to what happened after the financial crisis of 2007-09.
這一點幾乎沒人預見到。2020年新冠疫情爆發時，大多數經濟學家認為，發達國家將面臨長期的高失業率，類似于2007-2009年金融危機之后發生的情況。
In April 2020 America’s unemployment rate hit 14.7%. Had joblessness declined at its post-financial-crisis pace, the unemployment rate in March this year would have been over 13%.
2020年4月，美國失業率達到14.7%。如果失業率按照07-09年金融危機后的速度下降，今年3月的失業率將超過13%。
In fact, it is 3.6%. And America, by many standards, is a laggard. A rise in the number of Americans who have decided they do not want to work at all, and who therefore do not count as unemployed, means that the share of 15-to-64-year-olds with a job is slightly below its level at the end of 2019.
事實上，失業率只有3.6%。而美國，從多個標準來看，還屬于落后者。越來越多的美國人不想工作，因此他們不算失業，這意味著15-64歲有工作的人數比2019年底略低。
In one-third of rich countries, however, this share is at an all-time high. Even among the other two-thirds, which includes America, the median shortfall in the employment rate is just one percentage point. It adds up to the quickest and broadest-based jobs boom in history.
然而，在三分之一的發達國家里，這一比例達到了空前之高。在剩下包括美國在內的三分之二的發達國家中，就業率缺口的中位數也只有1%。這是歷史上最迅速、范圍最廣的就業熱潮。
Canada and Germany are among the countries with record employment rates. The same is true of France, known for its high joblessness.
加拿大和德國是就業率創紀錄的國家之一。以高失業率著稱的法國也是如此。
The working-age employment rate in Greece is three percentage points above its level in 2019. Across the oecd group of mostly rich countries there are about 20m more jobs than had been forecast in June 2020.
希臘的適齡就業率比2019年高出3%。在主要由發達國家組成的經合組織中，就業崗位比2020年6月的預測多出約2000萬個。
The number of unemployed people chasing unfilled vacancies is the lowest it has been in decades.
尋找空缺職位的失業人數達到了幾十年來的最低水平。
Even as pricey energy and rising interest rates provoke concern about the economy, there is little sign from “real-time” indicators that demand for labour is dropping.
即使昂貴的能源和不斷上升的利率引發了人們對經濟的擔憂，但從“實時”指標來看，幾乎沒有跡象表明市場對勞動力的需求正在下降。
