美国人才市场上有“能力差距”一说吗?（在线收听）

AS IT IS 2015-07-01 Is There a ‘Skills Gap’ in US Job Market? 美国人才市场上有“能力差距”一说吗?

The United States’ job market has millions of unfilled jobs. Many of those jobs require technical skills. However, employers say many of those jobs are vacant because they cannot find people with the right skills to do the work. Labor experts call this paradox the "skills gap." A number of efforts have been launched to better understand and solve it.

美国就业市场存在数百万空缺岗位，很多岗位都要求职业技能。然而，雇主们称因为无法找到具备适当技能的人来做这些工作，所以很多岗位仍是空缺。劳工专家称这一悖论为“技术缺口”，同时做出很多工作来更好地理解并解决这一问题。

Rethinking training

Nicholas Wyman wrote a book called, “Job U: How to Find Wealth and Success by Developing the Skills Companies Actually Need.” He calls the skills gap, "a labor market mismatch -- people without jobs and jobs without people."

尼古拉斯·怀曼写了一本书，名叫《如何通过提高公司所需技能来实现财富和成功》。他称这种技术缺口是“失业者和空缺职位之间在劳动市场上的不匹配”。

In the United States, the cost of a traditional four-year college can be very high. U.S. colleges and universities produce many graduates every year. Yet unemployment rates among new graduates are high.

在美国，传统的四年制大学成本很昂贵，每年有很多毕业生从美国高校毕业，但毕业生中的失业率仍很高。

Nicholas Wyman says a combination of technical classes and on-the-job training -- an apprenticeship --would be a better choice for many people. He notes that, "An apprenticeship is where you learn from a specialist, you are provided mentoring, you learn in an on the job environment, the old cliche is that you are actually paid to earn and learn."  

尼古拉斯·怀曼说，技术课程和在岗培训，也就是学徒制对很多人来说是个很好的选择。他指出，“学徒制是跟从专业人员进行学习并获得指导，可以在工作环境下学习，按照那句老话就是挣钱和学习两不误。”

Mr. Wyman once served as an apprentice himself. He says apprenticeships are misunderstood in the United States, where "success" is often defined as attending a four-year college. But he notes that is changing as on-the-job training has spread outside traditional areas, like construction and manufacturing. He says apprenticeship possibilities are growing in some manufacturing jobs.

怀曼先生自己就做过学徒，他说美国人对学徒制有误解，人们通常将“成功”定义为上四年制大学。但他指出，随着在岗培训进入建筑业和制造业等传统行业，这一情况已经在改变。他说学徒制在一些制造业岗位上越来越有可能。

Mr. Wyman also says it is vital to get technical skills that are of immediate value to an employer. He adds that it is important to get transferrable skills -- those that can be used in more than one job. This is because technology and the nature of the workplace are changing at a faster rate than before.

怀曼还说，对雇主来说关键是急需的技能，他说重要的是获得可变通的技能，就是可以适用于多个岗位的技能，这是因为技术和工作场所的性质比以往变化得都要快。

There are questions about the definition, size, and nature of the skills gap in the labor force. Iowa State University researchers studied some of these questions recently. They examined employment, education and population information, and found the evidence of a skills gap is weak. 

人们对劳动力技能缺口的定义、规模和性质存在疑问，爱荷华州立大学研究员最近对一些问题进行了研究，他们调查了就业、教育和人口信息，发现能证明技术缺口存在的证据很薄弱。

Iowa State’s Liesl Eathington noted that many policymakers and employers say there is opportunity in "middle skills" areas, like machining. Yet she said the most recent recession hit some of those job areas hard. She said students should be on guard because "our economy really isn’t adding that many jobs that require the middle skills or middle educated territory."

爱荷华州立大学的丽莎指出，很多政策制定者和雇主声称在机械加工等“中端技能”领域存在机会，不过她说，最近的衰退对其中一些就业领域影响很大。她说学生们应该警惕，因为“我们的经济并没有产生很多需要中端技能或中等教育水平的就业岗位。”

She said employers could get more well-qualified applicants if they offered higher wages. She noted that graduates of two-year training programs still generally make less money than graduates of four-year colleges.

她说雇主们如果提供更高的薪水，就可能找到更多具备资格的候选人。她指出，两年制培训项目的毕业生所挣的薪水仍比四年制毕业生要少。

The question of finding the right person for the right job remains a difficult one. The Department of Labor says 8.7 million Americans are unemployed and another 6.7 million can find only part-time work.

为合适的人找到合适的岗位仍是个难题，劳工部称有870万美国人失业，还有670万人只能找到兼职。

Words in This Story

vacant – adj. not occupied, open to being filled

paradox – n. a problem involving two issues or conditions that appear to oppose or compete against each other

apprenticeship – n. a job in which someone works with a more experienced person in a field and learns skills from that person

cliché – n. an overused idea or saying

vital – adj. very important

applicant(s) – n. people seeking employment