题型：阅读理解 题类：常考题 难易度：普通
北京师大附中2018-2019学年高一上学期英语期末考试试卷
Work and the Young: Generation Jobless
“YOUNG people ought not to be idle (闲置的) . It is very bad for them," said MargaretThatcher in 1984. She was right: there are few worse things that society can do to its young than to leave them ignored.
Yet more young people are idle than ever. The International Labour Organization reports that 75m (m=million) young people globally are looking for a job. World Bank surveys suggest that 262m young people are economically inactive. The number of young people without a job is nearly as large as the population of America (311m).
Two factors play a big part. First, the long slowdown in the West has reduced demand for labour, and it is easier to put off hiring young people than it is to fire older workers. Second, inemerging economies population growth is the fastest in countries with disordered labour markets, such as India and Egypt.
One possible way to settle this problem is to stimulate growth. That is easier said than done in a world suffering from debt, and is anyway a possible answer. The countries where the problem is worst (such as Spain and Egypt) suffered from high youth unemployment even when their economies were growing. Throughout the recession ( 经济不景气)，companies have continued to complain that they cannot find young people with the right skills. This underlines the importance of two other solutions: reforming labour markets and improving education.
Youth unemployment is often at its worst in countries with inflexible labour markets. High taxes on hiring, strict rules about firing, high minimum wages: all these help force young people to the street corner. South Africa has some of the highest unemployment, in part because it has powerful trade unions and inflexible rules about hiring and firing. Many countries with high youth unemployment rate have high minimum wages and heavy taxes on labour. India has around 200 laws on work and pay.
Across the OECD (经合组织) , people who left school at the earliest opportunity are twice as likely to be unemployed as university graduates. But it is unwise to conclude that governments should simply continue increasing the number of people who graduate from university. In both Britain and the United States many people with arts degrees are finding it impossible to get appropriate jobs. In North Africa university graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as non-graduates.
What matters is not just number of years of education people get, but its content. This means expanding the study of science and technology and closing the gap between the world of education and the world of work-for example by upgrading vocational education and by building closer relations between companies and schools. Germany, which has the second lowest level of youth unemployment in the rich world, owns long-history system of vocational schooling and apprenticeships (学徒制).
The problem of youth unemployment has been getting worse for several years. But there are at last some reasons for hope. Governments are trying to address the mismatch between education and the labour market. Companies are beginning to take more responsibility for the young. The world has a real chance of introducing an education-and-training revolution worthy of the solution to the problem.
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