失业潮已经来临-Unemployment It’s coming
Britain is ill-prepared for the big rise in unemployment likely in the autumn
英国还没有准备好如何应对，秋季可能到来的大面积失业。
“I’ve had members of my association claiming universal credit and they’re shocked by how low it is,” says a Tory mp. It is unusual for Conservative stalwarts to see the benefits system at close quarters: almost three decades of mostly low unemployment have reserved it for the unfortunate few. But as the furlough scheme winds down and the deepest recession for a century hits employment, the system’s weaknesses will gain new political salience.
一个保守党议员说：“我有很多协会成员要求普及信贷，并且他们被如此低的水平震惊到了”。保守党的拥护者近距离看到的福利制度是不正常的：将近30年的低失业率为少数不幸者保留了福利制度。但是随着休假计划的结束，以及一个世纪以来最大的经济衰退对就业的打击，这个福利系统的缺点将会获得新的政治关注。
The official unemployment rate, as of the end of June, was just 3.9%—remarkably low at any time, let alone when gdp had dropped by more than a fifth. America’s June figure was 11.1%. It has stayed low in Britain because of the furlough scheme, under which the government paid 80% of the wages of employees.
截止6月底，官方公布的失业率仅仅 3.9% ——比任何时候都明显低，更不用说在GDP下降超过五分之一的时候。美国六月公布的数据为 11.% 。 在英国，因为休假计划，政府支付了员工80%的工资，所以这一比例比较低。
Now the sticking plaster is being torn off. The furlough scheme ends in October. This month firms had to start contributing to the cost of furloughed staff. Britain produces its unemployment figures with a two-month lag, so nobody knows what the jobless rate is now; but huge redundancies are being announced. On August 18th, Marks & Spencer announced that it would cut 7,000 jobs. Retail and hospitality are likely to bear the brunt , but white-collar jobs are going too: Accenture, a consultancy, is cutting 900 jobs—8% of its British workforce—because of a drop in demand for its services. Several law firms, including dwf and bclp, have recently announced job cuts.
现在面具正在被撕开。休假制度将在10月份结束。本月，公司将必须开始为休假员工的开支负责。英国的失业率有2个月的延迟，所以没有人知道现在真正的失业率。但大量裁员的信息正在被宣布。在8.18日，玛莎百货宣布将裁员7000人。零售业和酒店业首当其冲，白领工作也是如此：埃森哲咨询公司，因为其服务需求的下降，正在裁员900人——占其员工总数的 8% 。
The Bank of England expects unemployment to peak at 7.5%; the Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, is more pessimistic and has pencilled in a peak of around 12% followed by a relatively rapid fall. Given the scale of the hit to the economy, those numbers are relatively modest. This reflects a belief that, thanks to deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s, the British labour market is flexible.
英国银行预测失业率将高达7.5%；财政监督部门预算责任办公室则更为悲观，预计在急速的下降后，将达到12% 。考虑到经济遭受打击的规模，这些数字相当保守。这反射出一种信念：即由于上世纪80年代和90年代的放松管制，英国劳动力市场是自由的。
Recent economic history appears to support this view. In the recession of the early 1980s, a 5% fall in output pushed up the unemployment rate by around seven percentage points; in the early 1990s gdp fell by closer to 2.5% and the unemployment rate rose by almost four percentage points; in the recession of 2008-09, output fell by just over 6% but the unemployment rate rose by just three percentage points. Policymakers are hoping for a similar ratio this time, with the Bank of England expecting gdp to be about 5% lower at the end of 2020 than before the crisis but with only a three and a half percentage-point rise in the unemployment rate.
近代经济史仿佛印证了这一观点。在上世纪80年代的经济衰退潮中，5%的减产导致了将近 7%失业率的提升；在上世纪90年代初期，GDP下降了将近 2.5% ，失业率几乎上升了4个百分点；在08-09年的经济危机中，减产刚超过6%，但失业率仅仅上升了3个百分点。决策者们希望这次能够保持相似的比例——英国银行预计GDP在2020年底会比危机前降低5个百分点，失业率只上升3.5.个百分点
Not everybody agrees. Paul Gregg, a former Treasury official now at the University of Bath, reckons that the rise in unemployment during a recession is partly the result of the degree of stress on companies, and partly the result of its distribution by sector. In the early 1990s firms had piled on debt and were suffering from the impact of high interest-rates. In 2008-09 low interest-rates and a weak exchange rate helped to sustain profit margins and raised inflation, pushing down real wages. This time round, Brexit-related uncertainty had already squeezed corporate profitability, and now demand—especially in labour-intensive sectors with low productivity and profit margins—has collapsed. Mr Gregg’s framework suggests that any fall in economic output could push up unemployment by more than the drop in gdp and that the bounce-back could take longer than many policymakers expect.
并不是所有人都同意。前财政部官员，现巴斯大学的 Paul Gregg 认为，经济衰退期间的失业率上升一部分是因为公司承受的压力程度导致的，一部分是因为按部门分配的结果。在上世纪90年代早期，公司背负了大量的债务，并且遭受高利率影响。在08-09年，低利率和疲弱的汇率帮助维持了利润率，并推高了通货膨胀，压低了实际工资。这一次，与脱欧相关的不确定性已经压榨了企业的盈利能力，而现在的需求——特别是在低生产率和利润率的劳动密集型部门——已经崩溃。Gregg 的理论认为，任何经济产出的下降都比GDP的下降更能推高失业率，并且触底反弹的时间要比许多决策者期待的要长。
Most European countries are supporting jobs through furlough schemes and part-time work programmes. France has already extended its scheme to two years, and Germany is likely to follow. America opted for higher redundancies while offering generous support to the unemployed.
许多欧洲国家，通过休假计划和兼职工作来支持就业。法国已将该计划延长至2年，德国很有可能会效仿。美国选择了高裁员，同事提供了慷慨的失业补助。
Britain will soon have neither a furlough scheme nor generous unemployment benefits. Universal credit was increased by just £20 a week at the budget in March. The replacement ratio—the percentage of their previous income that British workers receive from benefits—is among the lowest in the oecd, and lower than in the early 1990s (see chart below). A rise in unemployment will thus not only be painful for victims, but also suck spending power from the economy.
英国不久后，将既没有休假计划，也没有慷慨的失业补助。在3月份的预算中，通用信贷每周只增加了20英镑。替代率——英国工人先前收入中福利部分的百分比——几乎是在经济合作与发展组织中的最低水平，并且比上世纪九十年代初还要低。因此，失业率的上升，不仅会给受害者带来痛苦，而且会削弱经济的活力。
Unlike the exam-results system, which has collapsed under the strain of the crisis (see Bagehot), the benefits system can probably cope. In April, before the furlough scheme was in place, initial claims leapt from 100,000 or so a week to over half a million. Claimants jammed phone lines and sat in digital queues. Since then the Department for Work and Pensions has redeployed 10,000 staff to processing roles, and reckons it can deal with a second upswing.
与考试体系不同，该体系已经在危机的压力下崩溃了，福利系统或许能够撑住。在4月，休假计划实施之前，首次申请失业救济的人数从10万，一周内激增到了50万。索赔人堵塞了电话线路，排起了长队。从那以后，工作和退休部门已重新部署了1万名职工从事处理工作，并且认为他们可以应对第二次增长。
But unlike many European countries, Britain has put little effort into actively supporting getting people into work in recent years. The market has looked after itself. These days the government offices that used to help people find jobs, now known as Jobcentre Plus, monitor workers rather than give them a hand. “I spent maybe 80% of my time processing claims and payments and another15% on stopping the most obvious cases of fraud,” says a long-serving Jobcentre staff member.
但与许多欧洲国家不同的是，英国近年在积极支持人们就业方面并没有做出太多努力。任市场自生自灭。这些天，过去帮助人们找工作的政府部门被称为就业中心加强版，他们监视工人也不是帮助工人。一位在就业中心工作多年的职工说：“我花了80%的时间处理索赔和付款，另外15%的时间用来阻止明显的欺诈按键”。
Britain’s experience of active labour-market policies has not been encouraging, but the government intends to try some. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has allocated £1.6bn ($2.1bn) to supporting work search and hiring job coaches and £2.1bn to a scheme to fund “high-quality jobs” for the young. Details are scarce. The only such scheme that has had much success in recent years was the Future Jobs Fund (fjf) launched in 2009, which provided young people with subsidised jobs and training. Those who took part were more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits after they had finished the scheme.
英国在积极劳务市场政策方面的经验并没有起到太多作用，但政府准备再进行尝试。总理 Rishi Sunak 已经调拨了16亿英镑用于支持求职和工作培训。21亿英镑用于为年轻人寻找高质量工作的计划。细节却几乎没有。近年来唯一成功的此类计划是2009年启动的“未来就业基金”，这为年轻人提供工作津贴和培训。参加该计划的人，在完成计划后，更有可能参加工作而不是倾向于要求福利。
The dwp should be brushing up its knowledge of active labour-market policies. If mass unemployment is on the way, it’s going to need some ideas that work.
就业和退休保障部，应当梳理他们关于促进劳务市场政策的知识。如果大量人员正在事业，则急需一些行之有效的方案。
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