Jobs data isn't
all doom and gloom, but try telling that to those losing out
While a few of us might enjoy the
opportunities thrown up by flexi-working, the vast majority aren't so lucky
雖然有少數人可以享受彈性工作崛起後的機會，絕大多數並沒有這麼幸運
The good life … working from home.
Photograph: Richard Saker for the Guardian
美好的生活...在家裡工作。圖片來源：“衛報”的Richard Saker
The traditional jokey exchange on the first
day in a new job:
"So, how many people work here,
then?"
"Oh, about half of them."
一個傳統在新工作第一天的詼諧交流：
“那麼，有多少人在這裡工作呢？”
“哦，他們大概有一半的人在吧。”
Economists might be forgiven for resorting
to humour in the face of seemingly contradictory evidence in the GDP and labour
market numbers. We are in a double-dip recession, the official data says. And
yet employment grew between March and June this year by 200,000. Before you dismiss
this number as being misleading, two thirds of the new jobs were fulltime and
80% were permanent. But even while all this hiring goes on, and in spite of the
Olympic feelgood frenzy, the prevailing mood is one of economic stagnation at
best.
經濟學家也許可以原諒藉著幽默在面對看似矛盾的GDP(國內生產總值)證據和勞動力市場的數字。官方公佈的數據說：我們處在一個雙倍衰退的境地。然而，今年三月至六月的就業人數增加了20萬。在您因誤導駁回這個數字之前，有三分之二新的職位是全職的，80％是永久性的。但即使這一切僱用是持續的，儘管奧運狂熱的感覺依然存在，最優勢的情況至多是經濟停滯。
It was Roger Bootle, a
witty as well as a highly regarded economist, who pointed out many years ago
that aggregate data can conceal almost as much as it reveals about dynamic and
varied economies. Headline numbers may fail to tell the full, detailed story. Bootle likened it to going into a branch of Starbucks and
asking for "a cup of coffee" – a look at the board will tell you that
there is a lot more variety to choose from than that. Similarly, the labour
market contains many different stories within it, of fulltime and part-time
work, self- and under-employment, "zero hours" contracts, and varying
experiences for young and old, male and female. But we are left with the
"genuine economic puzzle", as the Bank of England has put it, of big
numbers that seem to be telling us different things.
這是一個不但詼諧且備受推崇的經濟學家 羅傑·布特爾，他多年以前指出，有關動態和多樣的經濟統計匯總數據可以掩蓋幾乎和揭示出的一樣多。標題數據可能無法全面闡訴詳細的故事。布特爾將其比喻像進入星巴克的一個分店，並要求“一杯咖啡” -看看選單目錄上會告訴你，有更多的各種選擇。同樣，勞動力市場內涵蓋許多不同的故事，全職和兼職工作，自我創業和就業，“關鍵工時”的合約，不同的經驗的青年人和老年人，男性和女性。但留給我們的“實際經濟之謎”，如英國央行公佈的數據，似乎在告訴我們不同的東西。
Some of the mysteries are perhaps not so
mysterious. So-called labour hoarding means that employers are holding on to
staff they don't want to lose, perhaps in anticipation of future recovery.
Wages have been flat and so this is just about affordable. But under-employed
staff do nothing to boost economic growth. Equally, while some laid-off public
sector workers must have found jobs in the private sector, these may often have
been relatively basic service sector jobs. It is hard to raise the nation's
productivity when more and more people are employed in semi-skilled (and
sometimes dull and repetitive) roles.
有些奧秘也許沒有那麼神秘。所謂的勞動力囤積意味雇主控制住他們不想失去的員工，也許預期未來的復甦。工資一直平緩，所以這只是講求可負擔的。但半失業者的工作人員什麼也不做以刺激經濟增長。同樣，一些公共部門工作人員被資遣後必須在私營部門找到工作，這往往經常可能是在比較基本的服務部門工作。這是當越來越多的人從事半熟練技工（有時是枯燥和重複的）角色時很難提高國家的生產力。
Meanwhile "self-employment" can
cover hugely varied levels of activity, from intensive 80-hour weeks to very
little work at all. But more than 200,000 people became self-employed in the
past year, and there are now 4.2 million in this category. They can't all be
busy all the time. But if enough of them are operating in an undeclared cash
economy then official GDP figures will not fully reflect what is going on. And
so on.
同時“自僱性”的工作可掩蓋巨大的不同層次的活動，從密集的週數80小時到非常少的工作。在過去的一年有超過20萬人成為自僱人士，目前則有420萬在這個類別。他們不太可能在所有時候都很忙碌。但是，如果他們足量的工作是在一個未申報的流動現金經濟，那麼官方的GDP數字就不能完全反映是怎麼回事。
It is too easy for so-called knowledge
workers to salute a glorious future of flexi-working and portfolio careers that
keep us busy and comfortably off into our 70s and 80s, thus removing all
concerns about inadequate pension provision. This will not be the lot of the
manual worker – they haven't gone away, you know – or of those who cannot
easily find work after reaching pensionable age. In fact, it is an option
available to only a tiny (if voluble) fraction of the population. The middle
class, graduate view of work – a steady job and a career with only a small
handful of employers, which trundles happily on until retirement – is not dead,
but is only one entry on a long list of different ways of earning a living.
在我們的70年代和80年代，對所謂的知識工作者而言很容易對彈性工作和身兼數職組合的事業投以敬意，使我們忙碌並不好於耽溺。從而消除對養老保障不足的關心。這不會是大量消耗體力的勞動者 - 他們並沒有消失，你知道 -達到領取養老金的年齡後，誰也不能很容易地找到工作。事實上，它是一個只有一小部分（如果是健談）的人口可使用的選項。中產階層，畢業生的工作觀 – 一份穩定的工作和雇主不難掌握的職業生涯，可以很高興地直到退休 – 尚未死亡，但卻是一份長列的清單所列的不同謀生方式的一個入口。
Wages
工資總額
Three things at least need to change. We
need a better understanding of the true costs of unemployment and
underemployment, to force policymakers to come up with more pro-growth ideas
and interventions. We need more better quality, more productive, higher paying
jobs, to help support the "wages-led recovery" that the TUC's Frances O'Grady has written about. And we need to
develop a more balanced view of the benefits of both work and leisure – the
"good life", as discussed in Robert and Edward Skidelsky's recent
book How Much is Enough?
至少有三件事情需要改變。我們需要更好地了解失業和就業不足的真實成本，迫使決策者拿出更加有利於經濟增長的想法和干預。我們需要更多更好的質量，更高效，更高的高薪就業機會，以幫助支持關於TUC的弗朗西絲·奧格雷迪寫的 “工資帶動的經濟復甦” 。我們需要發展制定一個工作和休閒更平衡的益處觀點-如羅伯特和愛德華·斯基德爾斯基最近的一本書多少才夠用？
所討論的“好的生活”。
Ultimately there is no great mystery about
an anxious and disillusioned workforce underperforming and failing to raise
productivity, even while they hold on to their job. Ours is an economy that
isn't working well enough for enough people, even if there is no one single
data point that makes this case unequivocally. On the bright side, there is at
least plenty of work for economists as they continue to wrestle with the enigma
of the official statistics.
最終，焦慮和表現不佳的隊伍未能提高生產率沒有偉大的奧秘，即使他們堅守他們的工作。當前我國的經濟並沒有運作的很好足以供應人群，即使沒有一個單獨的數據指出使這種情況明確。但在光明的一面來說，經濟學家至少還有大量的工作，因為他們繼續對官方統計之謎搏鬥。
• This article was commissioned following a
suggestion made by Albalha.
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