来源：《卫报》
日期：2021年1月26日
Last November, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s worst-case scenario figured that the combination of a lingering pandemic and a no-deal Brexit would see 4.2 million people out of work by 2022. The good news is that Britain reached a deal with the EU before it left its regulatory orbit. The bad news is that the OBR’s worst-case scenario almost certainly underestimates the scale of the jobs crisis. Ministers have shut their eyes to the facts, clutching at the straws of unreliable statistics and inadequate policy responses.
去年11月，英国预算责任办公室根据最坏的情况预测，到2022年，持续的疫情和无协议脱欧将导致420万人失业。好消息是，英国在脱离欧盟监管影响前与欧盟达成了协议。坏消息是，OBR的最坏设想几乎肯定低估了就业危机的规模。政府部长们对事实视而不见，紧紧抓住不可靠的统计数据和不充分的应对政策当做救命稻草。
A report by the Alliance for Full Employment, a cross-party coalition of politicians, charities, trade unions and faith leaders, reckons that within months at least one in 10 workers (about four million people) will be without work.
由政治家、慈善机构、工会和宗教领袖组成的跨党派联盟“充分就业联盟”的一份报告估计，几个月内，至少有十分之一的工人（约400万人）将失业。
In 2020, an estimated one million under-25s were looking for work. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, responded with a Kickstart job-creation scheme for those who had not worked for six months. Mr Sunak’s programme is too small and too reliant on private companies to help much. Despite government claims that 120,000 jobs have been created, fewer than 2,000 young people have started in new roles. This is a lost generation taking shape.
在2020年，估计有100万25岁以下的年轻人在找工作。作为回应，财政大臣里希苏纳克推出了一项明白Kickstart的就业创造计划，面向那些已经失业6个月的人。苏纳克的项目规模太小，太依赖私营企业，无法提供很大帮助。尽管政府声称已经创造了12万个工作岗位，但只有不到2000名年轻人开始了新的工作。失落的一代正在成形。
Conservatives are supposed to be interested in ways to improve economic efficiency. Yet, high unemployment is such a waste of resources that no one interested in cost-effectiveness can be satisfied with it. Ministers are playing down the biggest inefficiency of all: high levels of persistent, scarring joblessness. The government ought not to hide behind statistics. Its latest Labour Force Survey has unemployment at 1.78 million in October 2020, a rate of about 5.2%. However, this is unreliable – and depends on how people view their employment status.
保守派应该对提高经济效率的方法感兴趣。然而，高失业率是对资源的浪费，任何对成本效益感兴趣的人都无法对此满意。政府部长们正在淡化所有低效现象中最大的一个：持续的、令人痛苦的高失业率。政府不应该躲在统计数字后面。其最新的劳动力调查显示，2020年10月的失业率约为5.2%，有178万人失业。然而，这并不可靠——这取决于人们如何看待自己的就业状况。
Unemployment and inequality are to rise. The UK’s lowest-paid workers are more than twice as likely to have lost their jobs in the pandemic than higher-paid employees. This explains the paradox that wages are rising during the coronavirus-induced recession.
失业率和不平等将会上升。英国低收入工人在疫情中失业的可能性是高薪工人的两倍多。这解释了在新冠疫情引发的衰退期间工资上涨的悖论。
The government, unfortunately, seems more focused on cutting the deficit than creating jobs when the economy recovers. This is stupid and absurd. Budget deficits should be used to stimulate the demand needed to generate jobs for all those wanting work. Ministers ought to be thinking about a job-guarantee scheme. This would see the public sector offer a fixed-wage job to anyone willing and able to work. This buffer stock of employment can expand or decline as business activity falls and rises. It is mad to be worrying about government debt when people’s livelihoods and wellbeing are at stake. It is annoying that ministers continue to do so.
不幸的是，当经济复苏时，政府似乎更关注于削减赤字，而不是创造就业机会。这是愚蠢和荒谬的。预算赤字应该用来刺激需求，为所有想要工作的人创造就业机会。部长们应该考虑一项就业保障计划。这将使公共部门向任何愿意和有能力工作的人提供一份固定工资的工作。这种就业缓冲可以随着商业活动的起伏而扩大或减少。当人们的生计和福祉受到威胁时，还在担心政府债务，这简直是疯了。部长大臣们如果继续一意孤行，就太让人恼火了。