2020年经济学人 熊彼特企业管理专栏--疫情造成的欧美失业潮(1)（在线收听）

Business

来源于《商业》版块

Schumpeter

熊彼特企业管理专栏

You’re furloughed!

你被停职了！

Should American job-cullers become more European during the current crisis?

在当前的经济危机中，美国的裁员应该更加欧洲化吗？

In mid-February Hilton, a hotelier, and its employees had something to celebrate. For the second year running the company came top in Fortune magazine’s list of best American companies to work for. The perks provided to its 62,000 direct employees in America included extended parental leave, Under Armour-branded uniforms and facilities to let travelling staff ship breast milk home. A mere six weeks later, on March 26th, tens of thousands of those pampered employees were given notice that they would be thrown out of work because of the covid-19 pandemic. That was the day weekly jobless claims in America spiked by 1,000% to 3.3m.

2月中旬，酒店老板希尔顿和其员工举行了庆祝活动。该公司连续第二年荣登《财富》杂志“美国最佳雇主”排行榜榜首。该公司为其在美国的62,000名直接员工提供的福利包括延长育婴假、军服品牌的制服以及让出差员工能将母乳带回家的设施。仅仅6个星期后，3月26日，成千上万优待惯了的员工接到通知，他们将因covid-19传染病而失业。这是美国每周申请失业救济人数上升1000%达到330万的那一天。

The stratospheric surge of Americans seeking unemployment benefits contrasts with the situation in western Europe. Companies there are struggling just as hard but many are keeping workers on the books at reduced pay. That is a familiar story. In times of economic upheaval, European firms rely extensively on schemes in which the government picks up part of the wage bill, such as Germany’s Kurzarbeit, France’s ch?mage partiel and Italy’s cassa integrazione. Traditionally, America has shunned such feather-bedding. From frontier days its labour laws have given employers leave to cull jobs almost at will. Not for nothing did the country elect a president whose catchphrase was “You’re fired!”

寻求失业救济人数激增的美国人与西欧的情况形成了鲜明对比。那里的公司也举步维艰，但许多公司仍在削减工资。这是一个熟悉的故事。在经济动荡时期，欧洲企业广泛依赖政府支付部分工资的方案，如德国的Kurzarbeit、法国的chomage partiel和意大利的cassa integrazione。传统上，美国一直避免使用这种“限产超雇法”。从拓荒时期开始，其劳动法就允许雇主随意裁员。这个国家选出了一位口头禅是“你被解雇了!”的总统，这不是没有原因的。