Bad circulation 坏循环

AMERICANS are used to thinking of their job market as lithe and supple. Employment snaps back quickly after recessions. Workers routinely shuttle between industries and cities to wherever jobs are abundant. But in the past decade, the labour market has resembled an ageing athlete. Each new injury is more painful and takes longer to heal. More than a year into the current economic recovery the unemployment rate remains stuck close to 10%, raising concerns about the kind of sclerosis that continental Europe suffered in the 1980s.

美国人总认为自己的就业市场是灵动易变的，衰退过后，就业率总能猛然回暖。工人们经常性的在各行业、各城市之间往返，投身于工作机会充盈的地方。但是在过去十年内，劳动力市场渐有迟暮之势，每一次新的冲击都要带来比过去更大的阵痛，需要更长时间恢复。一年以前，本轮经济复苏刚刚开始，失业率持续接近于10%，令人怀疑美国是不是遭遇了20世纪80年代欧洲大陆遭遇过的经济僵化。

The slow rehabilitation is in part because the economy suffered a trauma, not a scrape. The fall in GDP during the last recession was easily the largest of the post-war period, and output remains well below its potential. Few had expected a rapid return to full employment, but even modest expectations for jobs growth have not been met. Employment has actually fallen since the end of the recession; and unemployment would be even higher than it is were it not for discouraged would-be jobseekers quitting the workforce. Some economists now fret that other barriers besides weak demand stand between workers and jobs, and that high unemployment is partly “structural” in nature.

经济复苏缓慢，部分原因是，如今的经济遭受的是精神创伤，并非伤疤一道。上一轮经济衰退时GDP下滑幅度创二战后历史新高，商品产量远远低于其潜在能力。大家对就业率快速、完全恢复已经不抱奢望，但对就业增长最谨慎的预期也没能实现。事实上，衰退结束后就业率依然在下滑，如果不是那些所谓的潜在求职者受到阻碍，退出劳动力市场，失业率也许会更高。有些经济学家担忧，除了需求疲软外还有其他因素阻碍就业上升，而失业率的部分原因在于其本身的结构性失业。

The case begins with some kinks in recent data. Rising GDP has not led to the fall in unemployment predicted by Okun’s Law, established in the 1960s by Arthur Okun, an economist. The figures have also departed from the Beveridge curve (named for a British economist, William Beveridge) which relates job vacancies and the jobless rate. Unemployment has failed to fall in a way consistent with the increase in job openings.

这一担忧源于最近一些反常的数据：上升的GDP并没有降低失业率，这有违奥肯定律（20世纪60年代经济学家阿瑟奥肯得出）。就业空缺与事业率统计图背离了贝弗里奇曲线（以英国经济学家WB命名）。虽然不断有新的职位空缺，就业率并未得到增长。

Such deviations are perhaps too short-lived to be conclusive. But they jar because there are other reasons to believe that structural obstacles to jobs growth have risen. For instance, jobless benefits have been extended to 99 weeks in some states with high unemployment, compared with the usual limit of 26 weeks. Such payments provide crucial support to the long-term jobless and help to prop up aggregate demand. But they also push up the unemployment rate by discouraging workers from looking for jobs as assiduously as they might otherwise do.

这些反常现象也许仅仅是暂时现象，不足以说明问题。但它们之所以恼人是因为还有其他理由让我们相信影响就业增长的结构性阻碍正在增加。例如，有些州针对高失业率已将失业救济金期限扩展到了99周，而在平时仅限于26周内。这笔资金助长了长期失业的同时，还推动了社会总需求。此外，救济金使失业者安于现状，不必急于找到工作也促使失业率居高不下。

It is easy to overstate the effects of this. A study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco* found that those eligible for extended benefits were unemployed for 1.6 weeks longer than those who could not claim support. This effect is equivalent to a rise of just 0.4 percentage points in the unemployment rate (though other studies suggest the effect may be somewhat larger). By the standards of continental Europe, jobless benefits in America are quite mean relative to wages.

我们很容易就夸大了这种影响。旧金山美联储的报告显示，符合扩大救济金条件的人比得不到救济金的人多失业1.6个星期。这等于把失业率提高了0.4个百分点（其他研究结果显示其影响更大）。和欧洲大陆相比，美国失业救济金相对于其薪水不过中等水平。

A bigger worry is that jobseekers no longer have the skills demanded by employers. Half of the 8m jobs lost went in construction and manufacturing, and those departing these industries may struggle to adapt to jobs in more vibrant areas such as education and health services. The cost of this skills mismatch is compounded by America’s housing bust. Many owe more on mortgages than their homes are worth. Households often opt to stay put rather than default, leaving them trapped in places with high unemployment and unable to move to where jobs are plentiful. The rise of the two-income household has also made workers less mobile than they were: it is harder to move in search of jobs if there are two careers to consider.

人们更加担忧，求职者已经不具备如今用人者所要求的某些技能了。八百万失业人数中，有一半来自于建筑业和制造业，从这些行业离职的劳动者要在更加朝气蓬勃的产业，比如教育业、卫生服务业，获得职位，困难重重。而美国房产泡沫对这种技能不对口的情况更是雪上加霜。很多人已经资不抵债，为了不拖欠债务，很多家庭只能按兵不动，这把他们限制在了高失业率地区，不能向职业充盈地区调配。夫妻双方共同负担开销的家庭模式日益增加，使劳动力机动性大大降低，因为要兼顾两种职业，迁徙寻工就更加困难。

How important are these factors? Very, says Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He recently caused a stir by arguing that “most” of America’s unemployment is thanks to such mismatches, and hence not easily alleviated with looser monetary policy. Most American policymakers believe that structural joblessness has risen little, if at all.

这些因素到底有多重要呢？非常重要，明尼阿波利斯联邦储备银行主席安纳斯瓦米•纳拉亚纳•普拉萨德说。他最近发表的“多数”美国事业是这种专业不对口造成的，因此放松的货币政策对此收效甚微。很多美国政策制定者相信，如果结构性失业不是唯一原因，也是部分原因。

One of the few concrete estimates comes from the IMF. A recent report compared the skill levels of the unemployed with indicators of the skills required by employers, to create state-level indices of mismatches. It used local mortgage-default and foreclosure figures to estimate geographical immobility. The results suggest that each of these factors acts to magnify the impact of the other. The authors conclude that, because of these rigidities, the unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation—roughly speaking, the structural rate—rose from around 5% in 2007 to between 6% and 6.75% by 2009.

最终得到具体结论之一的，包括国际货币基金组织（IMF）。它最近出具的一份报告将事业者的技能与用人者所需技能相比较，得出各州技能不对口的的指数。用当地抵押拖欠和取消赎回权数值来估算地域不可机动性。结果显示，这些因素能相互影响相互促进。研究者得出结论，这种僵化造成了失业率与国家通货膨胀保持一致（简单说，就是结构性数据），从2007年的5%左右到2009年的6%-6.75%。

A weak jobs recovery might push such estimates up further. The long-term unemployed—those who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks—now account for almost half of the jobless. A worry is that this cohort may become unemployable as their skills atrophy and they become increasingly detached from the informal networks that would lead them to new jobs.

疲软的就业率回暖可能推动这一估计值继续走高。失业超过26周的长期失业者占如今事业人数的近一半。人们担忧，随着其技能的萎缩，并日益脱离可为他们提供新工作的信息网，这些失业大军会演变成永久失业者。更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

Cutting out the middle men
剪除中间派
The downturn may have accelerated a secular jobs trend that had been masked by the low- to middle-skilled work that the housing boom created. New technology has caused a hollowing-out and polarisation of the workforce. Employment growth for middle-skilled workers has steadily declined because of automation, but the productivity of high-skilled workers has boomed.

由房地产繁荣造就的中低技术需求型工作曾掩饰了当今的就业趋势，而如今的低迷会加速这种趋势。新技术的采用造成了排挤、两极分化劳动力的情况。自动化使中等技术工人就业增长放缓，但高级技术工人的生产效率大幅提升。

Sorting the cyclical from the structural is tricky; and excessively gloomy conclusions can be drawn in the midst of a downturn. The authors of the IMF study note that the structural barriers to employment growth may be transitory and could fade as the economy recovers. The rate at which workers leave unemployment is uniformly weak across sectors, suggesting that skills mismatch is not yet as important as weak demand in delaying hiring. The absence of price and wage pressures points to plenty of slack in the labour market. Yet it would be unwise for policymakers to hope that stronger demand will mop up all the jobless. America’s jobs market is not quite as flexible as it once was.
从结构性失业中分出循环性失业十分困难，在持续走低的过程中，人们很可能得出过度悲观的结论。IMF的研究结果说明，就业增长的结构性阻碍可能非常短暂并随经济复苏而淡出。再就业率在全国范围内一致走低，这说明技术不对口对就业率的影响并没有疲软的需求来的大。缺乏价格和工资压力让劳动力市场十分散漫。不过，政策制定者如果指望仅靠强劲的需求就能剪除失业，是不明智的。美国的就业市场不再像以前那样灵活多变了。