2021年经济学人 劳动力短缺--急需建造工人(1)（在线收听）

Finance & economics

财经板块

Labour shortages: Help wanted

劳动力短缺：急聘员工

Houses are in high demand. So too are the people who build them.

房屋需求量很大。建造房屋的工人需求量也同样很大。

DON HORTON, founder of America’s largest housebuilder, never thought he would have to turn away business in Texas.

美国最大的房屋建筑商的创始人唐·霍顿(DON HORTON)从未想过，有一天他会被迫放弃在德克萨斯州的业务。

Until recently he could not build homes in the state fast enough.

直到最近，他在该州的建房速度明显跟不上了。

Now his firm is restricting sales as industry-wide shortages of labour and building materials such as timber, slow construction and inflate costs.

现在，由于整个行业劳动力和建筑材料(如木材)短缺、施工缓慢、成本上涨，他的公司正在限制房屋销量。

The combination of these constraints and surging demand for housing has led to staggering rises in house prices.

销量收紧，加上住房需求激增，就导致房价大幅上涨。

According to figures published on August 31st, the Case-Shiller national house-price index was 18.6% higher in June than a year earlier—the third record-breaking rise in as many months.

根据8月31日公布的数据，6月份Case-Shiller全国房价指数比去年同期上涨了18.6%，这是多个月以来第三次打破纪录的上涨。

But although the shortages of materials are expected to ease next year, skilled labour will be harder to find.

虽然明年材料短缺有望缓解，但技术工人更会一人难求。

As covid-19 spread and countries locked down, the construction workforce took a big hit.

随着新冠肺炎的传播和各国的封锁，建筑工人受到了很大的冲击。

In America it shrank by nearly 15% in 2020, wiping out four years of job gains.

在美国，2020年建筑工人数量下降了近15%，抵消了四年来的增量。

But it has yet to recover fully, even as demand for housing has been turbo-charged by low interest rates and enthusiasm for bigger homes.

但它还没有完全恢复，即使低利率和对更大住房的追求导致住房需求大大增加。

Around 88% of American contractors say they are struggling to find workers, leaving nearly 300,000 roles vacant.

大约88%的美国承包商说他们很难找到工人，留下近30万个职位空缺。

Having decelerated in 2020, wage growth is now picking up.

2020年工资增长减速后，目前增速正在恢复。

Britain has the most vacancies in two decades, with two-thirds of construction firms finding it difficult to hire bricklayers and carpenters.

英国出现了20年来最多的职位空缺，三分之二的建筑公司很难雇佣到砖瓦工和木匠。

Half of all French construction firms report facing difficulties with recruitment, making it the country’s worst-affected sector, and a fifth of German building and civil-engineering companies say they lack skilled workers.

法国一半的建筑公司报告称面临招聘困难，这使其成为该国受影响最严重的行业，五分之一的德国建筑和土木工程公司称他们缺乏熟练工人。

The industry’s hiring struggles in part mirror the wider labour shortages affecting much of the rich world.

建筑行业的招聘困境在一定程度上反映了影响许多发达国家的更为广泛的劳动力短缺问题。

As in other sectors, a fear of the virus and an ability to fall back on benefits and savings might explain why the unemployed have been slow to return to work.

与其他行业一样，对病毒的恐惧以及依靠福利和储蓄能力，或许是失业者不急于重返工作岗位的原因。

Travel restrictions across national and provincial borders to curb the pandemic have hit the construction sector, which relies heavily on migrants, especially hard.

为遏制疫情而实施的跨国、跨省边境的旅行限制，对严重依赖移民的建筑业造成了打击。

(That has been starkest in China and India, where migrants account for four-fifths and one-third of construction workers, respectively.)

(这在中国和印度尤为明显，这两国的移民分别占建筑工人的五分之四和三分之一。)