Business Channel 2006-10-03&06

We need to take a look at the markets. It's three winning days in a row for the Dow Industrials and that means yet another all-time high for the world's most famous stock index. The closing number, as you can see, shows the Big Board at the NYSE, the Dow adding 16 points, closing at 11,866.69. The NASDAQ Composite gained der two-thirds of one percent. Oil prices, meanwhile, crept higher, up 62 cents, closing back above $60 a barrel, this as Saudi Arabia and five other OPEC nations say, they will cut production.

Unionized workers at 16 Goodyear tyre plants in the United States and Canada went on strike today. The strike involves 15,000 members of the United Steelworkers Union. The company and union negotiators failed to agree on a new labor¹ deal. The old contract, it is expired back on July 22nd, and both sides had been operating on a day-to-day extension. But on Monday, the union gave a 72-hour notice saying it will terminate the contract by midday today if a deal wasn't reached. Katherine.

So what exactly is causing this rift² between the two sides?

The key issue here is Goodyear's desire to shut down plants in Texas and in Alabama, while the union was determined³ to avoid plant shutdowns. Despite the strike, Goodyear says it has a contingency⁴ plan to keep its plants operating and that production will continue at normal levels.

All right, so we got some workers on strike, others, though, having some trouble finding a job. Tell us about that, Val.

Oh, yes. Eh, a third quarter job market index, it was released by the employment specialist agency - Challenger, Gray & Christmas. And it shows that employers have stalled on making new hires. The time that takes to find a job has increased to more than 4 and a half months. That is 11% longer than last quarter. The survey did have some unexpected findings, Katherine, it showed that workers 50 and older were having a slightly easier time finding a job than much younger job hunters.

Oh, that's very interesting. But are these job seekers having to sacrifice here, at least in the salary department to get these positions?

Well, actually that was another somewhat surprising result to have from the survey. According to Challenger Gray, 92 percent of people who scored a job between July and September managed to get a position that paid the same or better than their previous job. So all in all, some very interesting data here, and we will, of course, get a broader picture at the job market tomorrow morning when the employment numbers for September are released. And by the way, the expectation is that job growth will be pretty weak.

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 rift   

n.裂口，隙缝，切口；v.裂开，割开，渗入

参考例句：

• He was anxious to mend the rift between the two men.他急于弥合这两个人之间的裂痕。
• The sun appeared through a rift in the clouds.太阳从云层间隙中冒出来。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 contingency   

n.意外事件，可能性

参考例句：

• We should be prepared for any contingency.我们应该对任何应急情况有所准备。
• A fire in our warehouse was a contingency that we had not expected.库房的一场大火是我们始料未及的。