美国国家公共电台 NPR America Is In Full Employment, So Why Aren't We Celebrating?

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The U.S. job market sounds amazing right now, with unemployment around 3.6%. But what's it feel like to be in that market? All this week, we're asking what this economy means for people looking for a job, or looking for a better job or looking for a raise. Wages are rising, and some people who'd given up seeking work at all are coming back, yet some old economic divides have persisted. NPR's Scott Horsley spoke¹ with David Greene.

DAVID GREENE, BYLINE²: So how tight is this tight labor³ market right now?

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: It is tight across the country, but it's really tight in some places. One of my NPR colleagues, Jim Zarroli, is going to take us to Ames, Iowa, which has the nation's lowest unemployment rate. It's just 1.5%. And that means people like restaurant manager Elizabeth Kopecky really struggle to find and keep good help.

ELIZABETH KOPECKY: We, last year, had a call from a restaurant down the street asking if we had any extra staff that they could share. That's how bad it's getting.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: What did you tell them?

KOPECKY: That we didn't have enough for ourselves.

HORSLEY: Even though wages have been going up in Ames, they still have trouble attracting workers. There just aren't a lot of people moving to Iowa, despite the healthy job market. We did find, though, people are moving to opportunities in other parts of the country.

GREENE: Like where? Where are there opportunities right now?

HORSLEY: People are moving to places like Atlanta, Tallahassee, and Charlotte, N.C. We've seen an influx⁴ of workers from up north looking for better jobs and also for more affordable⁵ housing. In particular, a lot of African Americans are making this move, sort of the reversal of the Great Migration⁶ we saw in the last century. NPR's Daniella Cheslow spent some time talking with African-American workers in North Carolina, both newcomers and some longtime residents, like Nicole Muse-Dennis (ph). She's a single mother of two who says she's working 65 hours a week and just barely getting by.

NICOLE MUSE-DENNIS: I'm what I call over-employed. I have two jobs, and I'm still trying to make it.

HORSLEY: Unemployment among African Americans, David, is 6.7 percent. That is low by historical standards, but it's still nearly double the national average.

GREENE: Well, Scott, we've been talking about full employment for a while. And yet, every month, employers are finding more people to hire. So what exactly is happening? Give me the broad look here?

HORSLEY: One thing that's happened is that people who had been out of the job market altogether, either by choice or otherwise, are being lured⁷ back in. We have a number of stories in our series about, for example, women coming back into the job market. Sometimes full-time⁸, sometimes in the gig economy. And other groups that were sort of on the margins⁹ - for example, people with disabilities or a prison record, those might have been disqualifying in the past, but desperate employers, like Christopher Dickerson (ph), say, not anymore.

CHRISTOPHER DICKERSON: I don't care what your background is. I don't care where you came from. I don't care what color you are. I don't care - as long as you come to work every single day and give me everything that you can give me.

HORSLEY: Over the last couple of years, David, about 7 in 10 new people finding jobs have been coming off the sidelines rather than from the ranks of the unemployed¹⁰.

GREENE: Well, what does all of this mean for people's paychecks? I mean, for a while, we kept talking about, even though the economy seemed to be doing better and better, wages weren't really keeping pace with inflation.

HORSLEY: Yeah. For a lot of this very long economic expansion, wages did not go up very much. But they are finally picking up. And that's especially true for people on the lower rungs of the income ladder, which is encouraging. There is no question workers have more bargaining power now. And one of the things we looked at in the series is collective bargaining. During the recession, some unions grudgingly¹¹ agreed to accept lower wages for newer workers, and that created some friction¹² on the factory floor when people were doing the same job for less money. We're finally starting to see some of that turn around. I spoke with Courtney Herring (ph), who works at the Kohler company in Wisconsin. They recently inked a new contract that phases out that two-tiered wage scale.

COURTNEY HERRING: You could tell there was a lot of happy people, a lot of 'em. Production went up. People are wanting to stay for more overtime¹³ because they know it's worth their time now. So they're actually able to go out and do more things, or save up for something.

GREENE: All right. One of the voices in our full employment series, which is taking place all this week on the radio. You can also find it at npr.org. And you'll hear more on this program tomorrow. Been talking with NPR's Scott Horsley. Thanks, Scott.

HORSLEY: You're welcome.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 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。

3 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。

4 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。

5 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

6 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

7 lured   

吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The child was lured into a car but managed to escape. 那小孩被诱骗上了车，但又设法逃掉了。
• Lured by the lust of gold,the pioneers pushed onward. 开拓者在黄金的诱惑下，继续奋力向前。

8 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

9 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

10 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

11 grudgingly   

参考例句：

• He grudgingly acknowledged having made a mistake. 他勉强承认他做错了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Their parents unwillingly [grudgingly] consented to the marriage. 他们的父母无可奈何地应允了这门亲事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

12 friction   

n.摩擦，摩擦力

参考例句：

• When Joan returned to work,the friction between them increased.琼回来工作后，他们之间的摩擦加剧了。
• Friction acts on moving bodies and brings them to a stop.摩擦力作用于运动着的物体，并使其停止。

13 overtime   

adj.超时的，加班的；adv.加班地

参考例句：

• They are working overtime to finish the work.为了完成任务他们正在加班加点地工作。
• He was paid for the overtime he worked.他领到了加班费。