美国国家公共电台 NPR--How sick did the omicron variant make the job market?

How sick did the omicron variant¹ make the job market?

Transcript²

Friday's jobs report is expected to show the fallout from the omicron wave of coronavirus infections, which reached its peak last month. Analysts³ expect stronger job gains in the months to come.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Omicron infected millions of people in January, but the job market held up much better than many forecasters expected. The Labor⁴ Department said this morning that U.S. employers added 467,000 jobs last month. Job gains for November and December were also revised upward by a lot. NPR chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley is here. Hey there, Scott.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE⁵: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: What do the numbers tell us?

HORSLEY: They tell us that the pandemic punch was not as painful as a lot of analysts had expected. You know, there had been a lot of apprehension⁶ about this report because the Labor Department conducted its January jobs tally⁷ just about three weeks ago, which is right around the time the coronavirus infections were hitting a peak of more than 800,000 a day. And analysts thought that would depress demand for workers, especially at in-person businesses like restaurants, and also maybe keep some people who would be working on the sidelines. That probably did happen, but the fallout was much milder than expected. And we also know now that job gains in November and December were way better than initially⁸ reported - more than half a million jobs in December, nearly 650,000 in November. So the U.S. economy came into the omicron wave with more momentum⁹ than we thought.

INSKEEP: I feel obliged to pause here for a moment because these jobs numbers were a big part of the national political debate at the end of last year. And, of course, there were a lot of Republicans saying Biden is a failure. Look at these terrible jobs numbers. Biden is failing, failing. Now, Biden may well be failing - it's not mine to judge - but we know now that this was all a fantasy, that these numbers were just - and they're frequently revised. We could know at the time they might be revised, and now we know that the numbers are better than people thought at the time.

HORSLEY: Yes.

INSKEEP: So what does this mean for job growth going forward?

HORSLEY: Well, we already know that the omicron wave has started to fade. You know, this was a very sharp spike¹⁰ but also a fairly short spike. And Elise Gould, who's a senior economist¹¹ at the Economic Policy Institute, says daily infections have already fallen by more than half from where they were in the middle of last month.

ELISE GOULD: We see them coming down by the end of January. The question is then how quickly will they come down? And that's really a public health expert question. But you could see a recovery as early as February and certainly March if we can start putting the pandemic behind us.

HORSLEY: We also know that employers have a lot of open jobs they'd like to fill. There were nearly 11 million job openings at the beginning of January. Some of those may have been frozen during the omicron wave, but they might start to thaw¹² pretty quickly. And so we could see even stronger hiring in the months to come.

INSKEEP: And where are employers likely to find the people to fill those jobs?

HORSLEY: Well, that has been a challenge. You know, millions of people left the workforce¹³ during the pandemic. Some of them have been slow to return, but there's encouraging news in today's report about that as well. It shows more than a million people entered the workforce in January. And the share of people either working or looking for work inched up. Gould thinks we could see even more of that as the public health outlook improves.

GOULD: As it becomes safer and as fewer people are sick, they can participate more fully¹⁴ in the labor market, and we will see that return. And unfortunately, one of the byproducts of that will be as workers are less scarce, they may not have the same kind of leverage¹⁵ they had in the fall to be able to bid up their wages.

HORSLEY: Employers have been having to pay higher wages and offer better benefits over the last year as they compete for scarce workers. That has been one of the factors the Federal Reserve's been concerned about that's contributing to inflation. But the strong growth in the workforce in this report offers some hope that at least one contributing cause of inflation, labor shortages, may be easing.

INSKEEP: Scott, thanks.

HORSLEY: You're welcome.

INSKEEP: That's NPR's Scott Horsley.

1 variant   

adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体

参考例句：

• We give professional suggestions according to variant tanning stages for each customer.我们针对每位顾客不同的日晒阶段，提供强度适合的晒黑建议。
• In a variant of this approach,the tests are data- driven.这个方法的一个变种，是数据驱动的测试。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

7 tally   

n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致

参考例句：

• Don't forget to keep a careful tally of what you spend.别忘了仔细记下你的开支账目。
• The facts mentioned in the report tally to every detail.报告中所提到的事实都丝毫不差。

8 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

9 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

10 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

11 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

12 thaw   

v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和

参考例句：

• The snow is beginning to thaw.雪已开始融化。
• The spring thaw caused heavy flooding.春天解冻引起了洪水泛滥。

13 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

14 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

15 leverage   

n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量

参考例句：

• We'll have to use leverage to move this huge rock.我们不得不借助杠杆之力来移动这块巨石。
• He failed in the project because he could gain no leverage. 因为他没有影响力，他的计划失败了。