Translate the text from Russian into English, use the active vocabulary.

 

Существует три типа безработицы: фрикционная, структурная и циклическая.

Применительно к работникам, которые ищут работу или ждут получения работы в ближайшем будущем, экономисты используют термин фрикционная безработица. Фрикционная безработица считается неизбежной и, по крайней мере отчасти, желательной. Многие работники добровольно оказались "между работами", меняя низкооплачиваемую, малопродуктивную работу на более высокооплачиваемую и более производительную. Это означает более высокие доходы для самих работников и более рациональное распределение трудовых ресурсов.

С течением времени меняется структура совокупного спроса (aggregate demand) на рабочую силу. В результате таких изменений спрос на некоторые виды профессий уменьшается или вовсе исчезает. Спрос на другие профессии, включая новые, ранее не существовавшие, увеличивается. Такая безработица называется структурной.В данном случае безработица возникает потому, что рабочая сила не сразу и не в полной мере отвечает на новые изменения в структуре рабочих мест. Например, много лет назад высококвалифицированные стеклодувы остались без работы, потому что был изобретен станок для изготовления бутылок. Циклическая безработица возникает в период спада, то есть той фазы экономического цикла, который характеризуется недостаточностью расходов. По этой причине циклическую безработицу иногда называют безработицей, связанной с дефицитом спроса.

Естественный уровень безработицы устанавливается тогда, когда рынки пребывают в равновесии, то есть количество ищущих работу равно числу свободных рабочих мест.

 

5. Read and translate the text. Answer the following questions:

a) Why do governments tackle unemployment relentlessly?

b) Compare European labour-market laws and those of the USA.

c) What is the difference between frictional and structural unemployment?

d) Why do you think full employment is a mere impossibility?                                                                                                     

 

                                                           Unemployment

In economics, everything finally comes back to unemployment. However much attention the experts and politicians pay to a country’s gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates or wealth, the simple question of whether people do or do not have jobs remains central. The objective of full employment is usually one of the first manifesto pledges made by political parties around the world - though the extent to which they stick to such a promise can vary wildly.

Governments’ resolve to tackle unemployment is under­standable, given the trauma associated with losing one’s job, yet it is the ability of companies to hire and fire as they evolve that makes the free market such a dynamic way to run an economy. If a real-estate agent sees its business drying up amid a housing slump, it can try to economize by cutting back on marketing or office costs, but these are as nothing compared with the savings it can make by laying off staff. It is the interplay between these two forces - the government’s desire to see as many people in work as possible and companies’ need to stay afloat - that shapes not just the labour market but the fate of the wider economy.

In most of Europe, labour-market laws restrict a company’s ability to fire its workers and ensure that it pays employees a minimum wage. But in the USA job security policies save the jobs of existing workers, but at the cost of reducing the flexibility and efficiency of the economy as a whole, thereby inhibiting the creation of new jobs for other workers. Because of this, Europe has tended to create jobs at a far slower rate than the United States, where the labour market is signifi­cantly more flexible.

In its very broadest sense unemployment simply means the state of not having a job. How­ever, for economists this is an inadequate definition. There is a big difference between a temporary office worker who is merely between jobs for a few weeks (‘frictional unemployment’) and a factory mechanic whose skills are no longer in demand because his industry has moved most of its production overseas(‘structural unemployment’). The former will soon be back in work contributing to private-sector economic output; the latter may need to be retrained, often at the expense of the state over a significant period of time.

To try to distinguish between different situations, economists have devised various classifications of unemployment. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) the strict defi­nition of unemployment is when someone is out of work but actively seeking to get back into the labour market. The per­centage of workers in the US who met this description in 2008 was 9 per cent, compared with 8 per cent in the UK and 10 per cent in the European Union. There is another category for those who are long-term unemployed, which is usually a far bigger proportion (at 21 per cent in the UK) since it includes students, pensioners, stay-at-home mothers and those who are too sick or disabled to work. Economists also distinguish between the ages of those who are unemployed - and with good reason. Studies show that if you are out of a job for a long period in your teens or early twenties you are much more likely to slip into the ranks of the long-term or permanently unemployed thereafter.

There are two ways to measure unemployment. The traditional way is to count the number of people claiming unemployment benefits. The problem with this is that not everyone who is out of work and looking for a job will claim these payments - often for reasons of pride, occa­sionally due to apathy, and sometimes because they suspect they are not eligible. The modern, and arguably more comprehen­sive, way to measure unemployment is to survey a representative slice of the population - in the UK this consists of 60,000 people from all backgrounds - on their current working situation.

In practice, full employment is impossible, partly because people need time to seek out the right job even when it’s avail­able and partly because, as an economy develops and technology advances, some workers will inevitably lack the skills necessary to take on particular jobs. Often, unemployment is higher than it would otherwise be because, owing to minimum-wage laws or the wage-bargaining power of unions, firms have to pay their workers higher wages than they can strictly afford. Similarly, the existence of unemployment benefit can encourage some to remain unemployed rather than work. Countries therefore have what economists call ‘the natural rate of unemployment’ - quite simply, the long-run average unemployment rate.

 

6. Read and translate the text. Answer the following questions:

 

1. Why do potential employers (job recruiters) sometimes define job requirements in ridiculous ways? What is their main purpose? Would you apply for a job defined in an unusual way?

2. What are the regular requirements for the roles mentioned in the text (a bar tender, call centrejunior staff, sales assistants, surgeons)?

3. Should an employer have claims for his staff fulltime commitment? Why?

4. Are there any jobs that require Superhero skills and qualities?