2022年下半年笔译二级实务真题试卷
必做题
1. The labor force is the total number of people (aged sixteen and older) employed and unemployed. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force unemployed but looking for work. The unemployment rate is a fungible item. Previously, the government gauged unemployment by the number of people who filed unemployment claims in a given month. However, because many people who are or become unemployed by the technical definition—that is, they are looking for work—don’t qualify for unemployment benefits, the result was a serious undercounting of the unemployed. Now the United States relies on the monthly Current Population Survey from the Commerce Department, which provides a more comprehensive set of numbers based on household polls.
Note that to be officially unemployed, a worker must be seeking employment. People without jobs who aren’t looking for work because they don’t think any exists have, in effect, dropped out of the labor force and become discouraged workers (丧志工人). The labor force participation (LFP) rate can be revealing. It is the percentage of the total working-age population that is in the labor force.
In other words, the LFP rate is the relationship between who is eligible to work and who actually is working. Broken down demographically, variations in the LFP rate may offer clues to stories about social trends. As of the mid-1990s, the entry of women into the labor force in large numbers was probably the most significant economic shift of the post-World War II period. But in the latter part of the decade, participation by women leveled off and dropped in some sectors. Why this occurred is not clear; a natural leveling off does not seem to account for the change. More research, particularly into both women and men’s changing relationships to work, is needed. Interested reporters should find and bond with social scientists who study the workplace.
Economists talk about different types of unemployment: frictional, structural, and cyclical. The frictionally unemployed are people who haven’t had time to find a job yet because they are new to the labor force or are between jobs. Structural unemployment is a result of deep changes in the economy. Technological change may make some occupations obsolete. When people began driving cars instead of horses and buggies, a blacksmith’s skills were no longer necessary. The process by which jobs evolve and fade away as the skills they use become obsolete is called churning. Structural unemployment may also result from changes in international markets as lower-paid foreign labor force becomes available to do work that previously went to higher-paid domestic workers. In the last two decades workers in many important American industries, such as steel and textiles, have lost jobs to lower-paid workers in developing countries.
劳动力是指16岁以上就业人员和失业人员的总和。失业率是指劳动力中失业求职人员的百分比。失业率是一个可变换的指标。以前，（美国）政府根据特定一个月内提交失业赔偿金申请的人数来计算失业率。然而，根据失业率技术性定义列为已经失业或即将失业的人员，也就是那些正在找工作的人员，并不符合失业补贴申领要求，这就导致计算结果严重少计了失业人员数量。现在，美国政府根据美国商务部的月度现阶段人口调查结果来计算失业率，现阶段人口调查可以基于家庭调查的结果提供更全面的整套数据。
需要注意的是，要列为正式失业人员，劳动者必须仍处于求职的状态。那些认为无工可做因而放弃求职的失业人员，实际上已经退出劳动力之列，成为丧志工人。劳动力参与率（LFP）便能够揭示这一点。它是计入劳动力的劳动年龄总人口的占比。
换言之，劳动力参与率反映了适合就业劳动力和实际在业劳动力的关系。从人口统计学的角度分析，劳动力参与率的可变因素可以为了解社会趋势的背景情况提供线索。第二次世界大战结束后到20世纪九十年代中期的这段时间里，女性大量进入劳动力市场极有可能是经济层面最大的变化。不过在九十年代的后五年，女性劳动力参与率趋于平缓，且在部分行业出现了下降。出现
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