1、 外文翻译 原文 The Coming Labor Shortage Material Source:Journal of labor research Author: WILLIAM B. JOHNSTON I. Introduction This study explores the nature of the labor-shortage problem during the 1990s-its severity, its location, whats driving it, how inevitable it may or may not be, and how its demogr
2、aphics and economics fit together. Solutions are proposed for employers, particularly small employers who may not be at as much of a disadvantage as it may first appear. Although changes in the quality and quantity of the workforce are critical issues, attention is also given to innovation and the w
3、ay in which people are used and managed. These are areas in which small business has some potential advantages. II. Slowdown in Labor Force Growth Rate The rate of growth in the American labor force during the 1960s and 1970s were an anomaly. An atypically large “baby boom“ generation entered the wo
4、rk force at the same time as women began working outside the home in extraordinary numbers. Both of these phenomena have run their course, and the situation is now one of slowdown. The number of young people is no longer increasing, and the rate at which women are entering the labor force has slowed
5、. Women remain a significant part of that force and their numbers and proportion will keep rising, but the overall growth rate has already slowed dramatically and will continue to slow through most of the 1990s. The average growth of the labor force was about 3 percent per year during the 1960s and
6、much of the 1970s. The rate has now slowed to half that and will be only about one percent per year during the late 1990s. Even that one percent includes an enormous number of immigrants. One-third of all net additions to the work force will be immigrants or first-generation Americans, the native ch
7、ildren of immigrants. III. Older Employees The labor force has also experienced an aging phenomenon, an important occurrence for both the country and employers. A work force that was predominantly young in the 1970s-more than half were under 35 years of age-will become predominately middle aged in t
8、he 1990s. It is not just a sociological hypothesis to say that middle-aged and older people are more set in their ways than young people are. Older people tend to stay in one geographic place; they tend to stay in the same occupation; and they are far less likely to be newly trained. Interesting ins
9、ights can be obtained from census data. Compare people in their forties with people in their twenties. In any given year, people in their twenties change jobs three or four times as often. They change locations, moving from state to state, three or four times as often. They are three or four times m
10、ore likely to have some kind of new training or education. Structurally, as the workforce becomes more middle-aged, the economy will become harder to change. Industrial history shows that companies that significantly alter the way in which business is conducted are always young companies. For exampl
11、e, MCI began competing with AT the young guys were 22. The aging of American society creates a major challenge to business to preserve dynamism. IV New Work Force Demographics: Fewer White Males There has also been a significant change in the composition of the people who are coming into the labor f
12、orce. They are dramatically different from the people who are working today. Native-born white men compose just under half of todays workforce, so the “vanishing“ white male born in the United States is something of an over dramatization. But only 15 percent of the net work force additions-subtract
13、retirements and add all those who join the work force-will is white men born in the United States. The rest will be immigrants and minorities. Companies ability to hire the same kind of people that they have been used to hiring is demographically constrained. Organizations will not be able to clone
14、themselves with the traditional white male image. Companies will be made up of different groups of people who demand different benefits, different working conditions, and different hours of work. There will be a whole array of changes in the way people are treated and managed. Along with a change in
15、 demographics is the reality that a large share of the new work force entrants lack skills. The high proportion of immigrants and the large numbers of young people from deteriorating urban school systems create a difficult challenge to integrate new workers into an increasingly technological economy
16、. Results of a recent National Assessments of Education Progress test, conducted on 21-to 24-year-olds, provide striking evidence. Very small fractions of the total sample can accomplish tasks such as computing a 10 percent tip on a restaurant meal. Although there may be caveats to the test, the rea
17、lity is that a large portion of new entrants lack basic skills. The disparity between the quality of entrants just described and the requirements of the new jobs in the economy is striking. V. The Shortage: Where and When The final point is the geography and timing of these demographic changes. Big
18、differences will occur across the nation in terms of when and how the labor shortage will occur. The Northeast already has problems, and the problems are spreading. We can expect the problems to ripple as we move through the 1990s. There will be great differences in severity, depending on local rate
19、s of economic growth and local demographics. In southern California, where immigrants constitute such a large share of the emerging work force, the number of 18-year-olds is still rising. In Ohio, where there has been an outmigration of younger people for many years, there will be about a 20 percent
20、 decline in the number of young people being graduated from high school. So, different local labor markets will emerge based largely on regional migration patterns. Labor shortages will be influenced by how fast different regions grow. In the Northeast, the combination of outmigration and slow popul
21、ation growth, coupled with a booming economy, created a shortage. The Northeastern experience may or may not be repeated in other parts of the country. Economic growth determines the severity of the shortage. The reason the shortage arrived early is because we are now in the midst of a six-year burs
22、t of job creation in our economy that may or may not continue. If we have a recession, the problem will be much less severe. But if even moderate levels of economic growth continue through the early 1990s, the labor shortage will become severe in much of the nation. VI. Jobs of the Future Under aver
23、age economic conditions over the next 10 to 12 years, about 20 million new jobs will be created. More than 100 percent of those new jobs will be in the service industries. Goods production, including agriculture, will not add any net new jobs and will probably shrink a little because of increased pr
24、oductivity, not because of international competition. We will add 20 million new jobs almost exclusively in the service sector. The United States clearly has become a service-dominated economy and will remain so throughout the 1990s. A review of the nature of jobs, the kinds of occupations, and the
25、requirements for each job category in the new economy indicates a dramatic rise in the average skill requirements for employees. Over the 15-year period we examined, jobs in the lowest skill category declined. About half as many jobs in that low-skill category are being created as now exist. At the
26、top end of the scale, jobs requiring sophisticated abilities, such as advanced mathematics and reading and writing technical material, are being created at a rate so that twice as many sophisticated jobs will exist in 15 years as exist today. The middle jobs that do not require advanced education (s
27、uch as those in the high end of the clerical field or in retailing) are also increasing in number. The typical middle job on the Labor Department scale used to require just below the median level skill. The new middle-level jobs will require just above the median skill level. The skill mix is moving
28、 to a higher level and there is a smaller labor force, many of whose new members are less skilled. By comparing these job skills with the ratings from the labor markets, we have found that about 25 million people will need to improve their skill levels if the labor force is to perfectly match availa
29、ble jobs in the year 2000. Basic demographics, moderated by economic trends, argue that circumstances in the 1990s will be very tight indeed. Unless we have a terrible recession or sustained poor growth, we can expect the problem to remain throughout the 1990s. VII. Conclusion All businesses, large
30、and small, are going to face the same set of problems. Big business can throw money at problems, an option not open to small business. Big business will be using a lot of money to bid up wages and to invest in costly educational and training systems. Small business must use other strategies. Traditi
31、onally, small business has been an innovator in the use of capital and people, with a premium placed on the efficient use of people. Small businesses will develop the systems, the software, and the strategies that make better use of individuals and resources. Software in the food and beverage indust
32、ry, for example, typically has been developed by individual entrepreneurs who understood their business, not by the big vendors selling solutions to restaurant owners. Innovation, the ability to be close to customers, and the ability to be close to employees are the sources of small businesss signif
33、icant advantage. There have been many problems over the last several decades, ranging from the oil shock to inflation, in which small business appeared to be at a great disadvantage. Yet, small business continued to be the engine of growth in this nation. The labor shortage will not present an insur
34、mountable challenge. Indeed, it may provide small business an advantage in the 1990s. 译文 即将到来的劳动力短缺 资料来源 : 劳动力研究之旅 作者：威廉 B.庄士敦 一、简介 本文探讨的是在 20 世纪 90 年代劳动力短缺发生的地区、原因、是否是不可避免的，以及人口和经济是如何结合在一起的等问题。目前， 帮助雇主解决劳动力短缺问题的方案已经提出，特别是针对受到影响比较严重的小雇主的方案。虽然改善劳动力数量和质量是至关重要的问题，但是注意力仍应放在创新、劳动使用和管理方式上。在这些方面，小型企业有一定的潜在
35、优势。 二、放慢的劳动人口增长速度 美国劳动人口在 20 世纪 60 年代和 70 年代的增长速度是反常的。在女性劳动人口以惊人数量进入劳动力市场同时，新生代的劳动力也正在加入劳动力大军。这两种劳动力数量增加的速度有所放缓，年轻人的数量不再增加，同时女性进入劳动力市场的速率也减缓。但是妇女仍然是劳动力中一个重要的组成部分，他们的人数和比例继续在上升，但是总体增长速度已经戏剧性的放缓，并会在 20 世纪 90 年代内继续放缓。 劳动力人口平均增长率在 60 年代和 70 年代大部分时间中为每年 3%左右。现在的速度已经放慢到一半，并且在 20 世纪 90 年代后期每年只有 1%左右，即使在 1%
36、中也仍然包括了庞大的移民数量。在这之后所有劳动人口净增的三分之一将会是移民或第一代美国人以及移民的本地孩子。 三、老员工 劳动人口正经历着老龄化的阶段，这是一个对国家和雇主都很重要的变化。在 70 年代由年轻人占主导地位的劳动人口（超过一半的人年龄低于 35 岁）将在 90 年代期间变成中年人占主导地位。 正如一个社会学假设所说的：中年和老年人比年轻人更喜欢按照自己的方式做事。老年人往往喜欢停留在一个地方，他们也往往停留在相同的职业，他们不太可能接受新的培训。这种有趣的假设可以从普查数据中获得。 比较二十岁多的人和四十岁多的人。在任何一年中，二十多岁的人会经常换三四个工作，他们改变地点，在各大
37、洲之间移动，这样的三四次经常发生。他们也更容易接受新的培训或教育。从结构上看，当劳动力变成中年人占主导地位的时候，经济将变得难以改变。 工业历史表明，能彻底改变运营方式的永远是年轻的公司 。例如 20 世纪70 年代的美国微波通信公司开始和美国电话电报公司竞争。美国微波通信公司员工的平均年龄是 28 岁，美国电话电报公司员工的平均年龄是 44 岁。年轻的公司员工的平均年龄和已经建立的航公司相比相当于 40 多岁和 20 多岁。 计算机公司能很好的说明这一点，在克雷计算机公司，当新的工程师刚进入的时候，克雷的创始人习惯于在动员讲话中说：“你们是公司的未来，我们已经有很多发明了旧的机器的老员工在这
38、里了。别听他们的，你们要按照自己的方式做事”。这些老的人聊的是 28 岁人才聊的内容，你们应该是聊 22 岁的内容。因此美国的老龄 化社会只能给经济制造很大的专业挑战来保持经济活力。 四、新的劳动人口统计：男性白人劳动力越来越少 进入劳动力市场的人群已经发生了重要的变化，已经和现在正在工作的人有戏剧性的不同。本地的男性白人的比例已经少于目前劳动力人口的一半，所以在美国男性白人的“消失”也是有点过于戏剧化。但是事实是劳动人口净增长中的确只有 15%（减去退休的然后加上所有参加到工作中来的人）是在美国土生土长的男性白人，剩下的基本上是移民和少数民族。 公司招同一种类型的员工的能力是有限的。组织将会
39、由那些有不同的需求，不同工作条件，不同工作时间的员工组成。对于不同的人在管理方式上也将发生一系列的变化。 随着人口统计而出现的是大部分的新的劳动人口都缺乏技能的事实。大部分的移民和大量的从日益恶化的城市学校系统出来的年轻人对于进入技术性的经济造成了空前的挑战。 根据一项关于 21-24 岁的全国教育进展评估测试提供了明显的证据。在总的样本中，只有极少一部分人能完成像计算出餐厅 10%的小费的任务。即使这可能是测试的一个警告，事实上是，很大部分的新劳动人口都缺少基本的技 能。上面提到的新劳动人口的能力和经济中新的工作所要求的差距还是很明显的。 五、短缺的地区和时期 最后一点是地理和人口结构的变化
40、。在什么时候和怎么发生劳动力短缺问题上将会发生很大的不同。东北已经出现问题，并且这个问题在蔓延。我们希望问题能有所改变使得我们能够顺利度过 90 年代。 严重程度会有很大的差异，这取决于本地经济发展和人口增长速率。在南加利福尼亚州，移民构成了大部分的新兴劳动力， 18 周岁的人口数量仍然在增加。在俄亥俄州，年轻人都选择移民到外国已经很多年了，在有高中学历的年轻人已经少了 20%左右。所以不同的 本地劳动力市场出现在很大程度上基于区域转移的类型。 劳动力短缺将被区域发展所影响。在东北地区，综合移民和缓慢的人口增长，结合经济的发展，造成了短缺，东北的经验有没有可能会在城市的另外地方重复，是个未知数
41、。 经济增长决定短缺的严重程度。短缺来的早的原因是我们现在正处于经济是否能创造一个就业机会持续爆发 6 年的时期。如果我们有一个衰退，短缺的问题就不会这么严重。如果经济发展继续处于中等水平到早期的 90 年代，那劳动力短缺将会变得很严重。 六、未来的工作 在接下来低于平均经济条件 10 到 12 年期间，大概有两千万新工作被 创造。超过 100%的新工作将会是服务行业。商品生产，包括农业将不会增加新工作或者还有可能会有下降，不是因为国际竞争。是因为我们将增加的两千万新工作几乎全部都是服务行业的。美国差不多已经是服务业为主导经济的国家，并且到 90 年代也会保持这种现状。 审视一系列的工作，各种
42、职位，各种类型的工作需求说明对雇员的要求戏剧化地提高。在过去的 15 年的考核中，低技能要求的工作越来越少。差不多一半多的低技能工作类型消失。在高端产品领域，工作需要复杂的能力，就像有效率的阅读和书写技术材料，这些工作数量增长到过去 15 年的两倍多。那 些不需要受过先进教育的中端工作（就像高端领域中的高级文书或者零售者）也有一定程度的增长。传统的中端工作在劳动力市场中习惯于使用低于中端技术水平的人员，但是新的中端工作的需要高于中端水平的技术。 这样的技术组合在慢慢迈向更高水平，并且劳动力也越来越少，很多新的成员都是缺乏技能的。观察这些被劳动力市场评分的劳动力，如果到 2000 年劳动力要很好
43、地匹配工作的需求，那么两千五百万左右的人都需要提高技术水平。 虽说受经济放缓影响，但实际上在 90 年代的情形将会比较紧张。除非我们有一个严重的萧条或者保持经济低增长，我们只能 希望问题到 90 年代有所突破。 七、结论 所有的企业，不管大还是小，都要面对同样的问题。大的企业可以加大投资来解决问题，但是选择并没有对小企业开放。大企业可以用大量的资金来抬高薪酬，并且在教育和培训系统上投资，小企业则必须用别的方法。 传统的小企业在资本和人力的运用上是一个创新者，通过奖金来充分使用人力。所以小企业应该改进系统，从软件和能充分利用人力资源的方法入手。例如在食品和饮料产业，企业家会改革他们自己的企业，而不是通过大的供应商销售来解决问题。 创新是一种更好接近消费者的能力，更好接近雇员的能力，这些能 力都是小企业重要的优势。在过去 12 年里，在石油冲击和通货膨胀的情况下，出现了许多使小企业处于不利地位的问题。然而，小企业仍然是地区经济发展的发动机，劳动力短缺不会是不可逾越的挑战，事实上，这也可能在 90 年代给小企业提供有利因素。
