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| If 2020 was the year that made Zoom a verb and imbued the phrase “online dating” with new meaning, 2021 was its annoying younger sibling. Things were not quite as novel and scary as the darkest early days of the pandemic and initial state and local lockdowns, but the year found new and creative ways to be bad. |
| 如果2020年是让Zoom成为动词，并赋予“网上约会”一词新含义的一年，那么2021年就是它那个招人烦的弟弟或妹妹。事情并不像疫情早期的黑暗日子和最初的州级和地方封锁那么陌生和可怕，但这一年以创造性的新方式作怪。 |
| Shutdowns weren’t nearly as widespread, but continued waves of coronavirus infection caused factories to shutter and people to retrench from economic life. This was a year in which the Duke of Hastings replaced the Tiger King as a national obsession, vaccine cards became a passport to semi-normal life, and the internet lost its hive mind over America’s cream cheese shortage. |
| 停工并没有那么普遍，但持续的新冠病毒感染浪潮导致工厂关闭，人们减少了经济活动。这一年是黑斯廷斯公爵取代《养虎为患》(Tiger King)成为全民痴迷的一年，疫苗卡成为半正常生活的通行证，互联网因为美国奶油奶酪短缺而失去蜂巢思维。 |
| Social trends like those can tell us a lot about the economy we’re living in. To wrap up 2021, we ran down what some of the big cultural moments and movements taught us about the labor market, economic growth and the outlook for 2022. |
| 像这样的社会趋势可以告诉我们很多关于我们所生活的经济体的信息。在2021年结束时，我们将盘点一些重要的文化时刻和运动，让我们获得关于劳动力市场、经济增长和2022年前景的了解。 |
| The Everything Shortage |
| 一切都短缺 |
| Sadly, it wasn’t just the schmear that ran out this year. Many, many things came up short in 2021. For a while, people tried to blame the fact that they couldn’t get hold of a couch or a used car on a ship stuck in the Suez Canal, but society eventually came around to the reality that we’ve all been buying so much stuff that we have collectively broken the supply chain. |
| 遗憾的是，短缺的不仅是奶油奶酪。2021年，许多许多东西都出现了短缺。以前，人们还试图将订不到沙发或二手车归咎于苏伊士运河的货轮堵塞，但社会最终还是接受了事实，我们买的东西太多了，以至于我们集体破坏了供应链。 |
| Government stimulus checks and savings amassed over long months at home have been fueling strong consumer spending, and the virus has shifted spending patterns away from services like restaurant meals and plane tickets and toward goods. Container ships, ports and factories couldn’t keep up with the unusual boom, especially as new virus waves spurred occasional shutdowns. |
| 在国内，政府的经济刺激支票和积累数月的储蓄一直在推动强劲的消费者支出，而病毒使支出模式从餐饮和机票等服务转向商品。集装箱船、港口和工厂跟不上异常激增的步伐，尤其是在新的病毒浪潮偶尔引发停工的情况下。 |
| Product shortages have raised prices, helping to push inflation up to the fastest pace in nearly 40 years. The big question is whether high inflation will continue in 2022. As the Omicron variant threatens to throw more kinks into global supply lines, economic policymakers worry that it will persist. |
| 产品短缺推高了价格，帮助通胀以近40年来的最快速度增长。最关键的问题是高通胀是否会在2022年继续下去。由于奥密克戎变异株可能会给全球供应线带来更多问题，经济决策者担心它会持续。 |
| An Anti-Work Era? |
| 一个反工作的时代？ |
| About 1.5 million “idlers” and counting have joined a community on the site Reddit dedicated to “those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life.” If you were looking for a perfect expression of pandemic populist angst, that might be it: It’s replete with stories of bad bosses, workday abuses and both planned and spontaneous quits. |
| 大约有150万“闲人”加入了Reddit网站上的一个社区，并且人数还在增加，该社区是专门为这样的人开设的：那些想要结束工作、对结束工作感到好奇、想要从无工作的生活中获得最大收益的人。如果你正在寻找一种完美表达大流行民粹主义焦虑的方式，答案可能就在这里：它充斥着坏老板、工作日虐待以及规划辞职和一时兴起就辞职的故事。 |
| Redditors weren’t alone in getting excited about leaving jobs this year. Americans quit their jobs at record rates, in what was labeled “The Great Resignation” or the “Big Quit.” Myriad essays and articles have tried to assess why people are throwing in the towel, but most agree that it has something to do with burnout after long months of exposure to public health risk or endless online hours during the pandemic. |
| Reddit用户们并不是唯一对今年离职感到兴奋的人群。美国人以创纪录的速度辞掉工作，被称为“大辞职潮”或“大写的不干了”。无数论文和文章试图评估人们为何放弃，但大多数人都认为，这与疫情期间长时间暴露于公共卫生风险或无休止的上网时间后的倦怠有关。 |
| Some have suggested that a collective life-or-death experience has caused people to reassess their options, while others have suggested that the same government-padded savings that are allowing people to spend so much are giving them the wherewithal to be pickier about where they work and how much they are paid. |
| 一些人认为，集体生死经历促使人们重新评估他们的选择，而另一些人则认为，政府补贴导致的储蓄使得人们大量消费，让他们觉得有了对在哪工作和赚多少钱更加挑剔的资本。 |
| Burned-Out Boomers |
| 倦怠的婴儿潮一代 |
| This may also have been the year that “OK, Boomer” ceded the floor to “You OK, Boomer?” |
| 这可能也是“好的，老人家”这一口头禅让位给“你还好吗，老人家？”的一年。 |
| A recent Federal Reserve survey of business contacts found that several “noted that baby boomers were leaving jobs and selling businesses to retire early — a trend that was due (1957 marked the peak year for births among baby boomers; those babies turn 65 next year) but has accelerated because of pandemic burnout.” |
| 美联储最近对商业人士的一项调查发现，有几位“注意到婴儿潮一代正在离职并出售企业以提早退休——这一趋势已经到来（1957年标志着婴儿潮一代出生的高峰年；这些婴儿明年将满65岁），但该趋势由于疫情产生的倦怠而加速”。 |
| That shows up in the data. People over the age of 45 have been slower to return to the job market since the start of the pandemic. That group includes members of Generation X, which ranges in age from 41 to 56, and baby boomers, who are roughly 57 to 75. It’s not clear if the apparent rush toward early retirement is going to stick: People may go back once the health scare of the pandemic is behind us, or if stocks return to less buoyant valuations, reducing the value of retirement portfolios. |
| 通过数据可以看出这一点。自疫情开始以来，45岁以上的人重返就业市场的速度较慢。这个群体包括年龄从41岁到56岁不等的X世代成员，以及年龄在57岁到75岁之间的婴儿潮一代。目前尚不清楚提前退休热潮是否会持续下去：一旦人们对疫情的恐慌过去，或者股价不那么景气，从而降低了退休投资组合的价值，他们可能会重返就业市场。 |
| What happens next with the middle-age-and-up work force will be pivotal to the future of the labor market. If older workers stay out, America’s labor force participation rate — and the pool of workers available to employers — may remain depressed compared with levels that prevailed before the pandemic. That will be bad news for employers, who are increasingly desperate to hire. |
| 中年及以上的劳动力接下去会发生什么对劳动力市场的未来至关重要。如果年长的劳动力仍不参与，与疫情之前的普遍水平相比，美国的劳动力参与率——以及雇主可用的工人数量——可能会继续低迷。对于越来越急于招人的雇主来说，这将是个坏消息。 |
| Generational Warfare, Skinny Jean Edition |
| 紧身牛仔裤的代际斗争 |
| Don’t shed all of your tears for the baby boomers, because millennials also had a tough time in 2021. They divided the year between reminding the internet that they are graying, keeping Botox boutiques in business, and feeling aghast as Generation Z, their successors, accused them of being old. A generation that made the poorly informed decision to recycle the low-rise trend also had the gall to claim that side parts make people look aged and skinny jeans are out. |
| 不要把眼泪都留给婴儿潮一代，因为千禧一代的2021年也不好过。这一年，他们一面提醒互联网自己在变老，一面光顾肉毒杆菌专卖店，当后浪Z世代指出他们老了，他们还震惊不已。这一代人重新捡起低腰潮流的决定很不明智，他们还有胆说侧分发型显老，紧身牛仔裤过时了。 |
| Whether their elders are ready for it or not, the reality is that Gen Z, the group born from 1997 to 2012, began to enter adulthood and the labor market in full force during the pandemic. It is a comparatively small generation, but its members could shake things up. They are fully digital natives and have different attitudes toward, and expectations of, work life from those of their older counterparts. |
| 不管长辈们是否已经做好准备，现实就是，Z世代——即1997年至2012年出生的人——在疫情期间会全面成年并进入劳动力市场。这是人口相对较少的一代，但仍然足以催生改变。他们完全是数字原生代，对工作生活的态度和期望与老一辈人大不相同。 |
| If office workers ever actually meet their new colleagues, things could get interesting. |
| 如果办公室职员们真的见到他们的新同事，场面可能就会变得很有趣了。 |
| Everyone Hates ‘Hard Pants’ |
| 人人都讨厌“硬邦邦的裤子” |
| Speaking of the office, this year put the initials “R.T.O.” firmly into the professional lexicon. Return-to-office planning was repeatedly upended by rolling waves of infection, but that didn’t stop cries of outrage. Many professionals began to question the utility of high heels and slacks — known derisively as “hard pants” — as opposed to their far more beloved and couch-friendly “soft pant” alternative. |
| 说到办公室，“重回办公室(R.T.O.)”的首字母缩写已经在这一年稳稳进了专业词典。虽然感染的一波波来袭让重回办公室的计划一再被推翻，但这并没能平息愤怒的呼声。许多职场人士开始质疑高跟鞋和休闲裤（被戏称为“硬裤”）的实用性，与之相比，更适合沙发的“软裤”更受他们的欢迎。 |
| Whether the future of work-wear will involve more elastic waistbands remains an open question, but it is increasingly clear that America is unlikely to return to many of its old workday habits. Surveys of workers suggest that many did not miss the office, and employers are increasingly turning to hybrid work models and location flexibility, in part to avoid fueling further resignations. |
| 未来的办公着装是否会包含更多松紧腰带还是个悬而未决的问题，但越来越明确的是，在美国，许多旧有工作习惯可能回不来了。员工调查显示，很多人并不怀念办公室，越来越多的雇主也在改为混合工作模式和灵活办公地点，部分原因是为了避免更多人辞职。 |
| Travel Remained Depressed |
| 出行仍受抑制 |
| Borders closed, and opened, and closed again or included restrictions as waves of coronavirus tore across the world map this year. The same uncertainties facing national governments kept many travelers at or near home — international travel remains sharply depressed. Global tourism remained 76 percent below prepandemic levels through the third quarter, based on data from the World Tourism Organization. |
| 随着今年的新冠病毒浪潮席卷全球，边境关闭、开放，再次关闭或是采取限制措施。各国政府面临同样的不确定性，导致许多旅客滞留本国或周边——国际旅行依然受到严重抑制。根据世界旅游组织的数据，截至第三季度，全球旅游业仍比疫情前的水平低76%。 |
| Aside from Emily, it seems that relatively few of us are making it to Paris these days. That’s bad news for travel-dependent industries, and one of the reasons that spending patterns are struggling to shift back toward services and away from furniture, exercise equipment and toys. That has kept inflation high across much of the world. |
| 除了艾米丽，现在似乎很少有人能去巴黎了。这对于依赖旅游的行业来说是个坏消息，也是消费模式难以从家具、运动器材和玩具转向服务业的原因之一。这导致全球大部分地区的通胀高居不下。 |
| Q.R. Codes Are on the Menu |
| 菜单上的二维码 |
| Even when we did shift our consumption dollars back to experiences, those were often much changed by the pandemic. |
| 即使我们真的把所消费的美钞放回到体验上，这些体验往往也因疫情而面目全非。 |
| A case in point: Many restaurants have moved to Q.R. codes instead of physical menus. Some of this is for sanitation, but companies are also turning to small doses of automation as a way to cut down on labor as employees are scarce. That has the potential to improve productivity. (The data so far on whether it’s working are mixed.) If companies do become more efficient, it could lay the groundwork for sustainably higher wages: The server who is now juggling twice as many tables as diners order from their phones can take home a fatter paycheck without chipping away at the restaurant’s profits. |
| 一个很好的例子：许多餐厅已经将实体菜单改为了二维码。部分原因是出于卫生的考量，但由于员工稀缺，企业也进行了小小的自动化转型，以减少人力需求。这有可能提高生产力。（目前，关于这一办法是否有效的数据好坏参半。）如果企业真提升了效率，这或许会为可持续的高工资奠定基础：因为食客用手机点餐了，服务生要照管的餐桌数量增加了一倍，他们就可以在不影响餐厅利润的情况下拿到更丰厚的薪水。 |
| But it remains to be seen whether workers will win out as companies streamline their operations to meet the moment. So far, corporate profits have been soaring to record highs, but wage gains are not quite keeping up with inflation. Things are changing fast, so how that story develops will be a trend to watch in 2022. |
| 不过，随着企业为适应现状而精简运营，劳方是否能胜出还有待商榷。到目前为止，企业利润飙升至历史新高，但工资增长却没有跟上通货膨胀的步伐。大环境瞬息万变，因此，这个问题的演变将会是2022年一个值得观察的趋势。 |
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