| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
|
| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
| [英文] [中文] [双语对照] [双语交替] [] |
| TOKYO — Over the last two years, Masataka Yoshimura has poured money into the custom-suit business his family founded more than a century ago. He has upgraded his factory, installed automated inventory management systems and retrained workers who have been replaced by software and robots. | 东京——过去两年里，吉村雅隆向自己家族在一个多世纪前创办的定制西装生意投入了大量资金。他升级了工厂，安装了自动化库存管理系统，并且重新培训了被软件和机器人取代的工人。 |
| Japan’s prime minister, however, wants him to do one more thing: Give his employees a substantial raise. | 然而，日本首相希望他再做一件事：给他的员工大幅加薪。 |
| The reasoning is simple. Wage growth has been stagnant for decades in Japan, the wealth gap is widening and the quickest fix is nudging people like Mr. Yoshimura to pay their employees more. Higher wages, the thinking goes, will jump-start consumer spending and lift Japan’s sputtering economy. | 理由很简单。日本的工资增长几十年来一直停滞不前，贫富差距正在扩大，最快的解决办法就是推动像吉村这样的人给员工加薪。这种想法认为，工资上涨将刺激消费支出，提振日本低迷的经济。 |
| But raises are a nonstarter for Mr. Yoshimura. Increasing wages would be “truly fatal,” he said last week from his office at Yoshimura & Sons in Tokyo. And he is far from alone in his thinking. Business groups, union leaders and others have questioned the feasibility of a plan by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to offer sizable tax deductions to companies that raise pay. | 但对吉村来说，加薪是不可能的。他上周在位于东京的吉村株式会社的办公室里表示，提高工资将是“真正毁灭性的”。他并不是唯一这么想的人。日本首相岸田文雄提出了一项计划，向提高工资的公司提供可观的税收减免，商业团体、工会领袖和其他人士则质疑该计划的可行性。 |
| That businesses would resist increasing wages even when essentially paid to do so shows just how intractable the problem is. Years of weak growth and moribund inflation rates have left companies little room to raise prices. Without steady, moderate increases in inflation, corporations’ profits — and their workers’ wages — have languished, economists say. | 即使是在实质上获得报酬的情况下，企业也会抵制增加工资，表明这个问题棘手的程度之深。多年的疲弱增长和停滞不前的通胀率使得企业几乎没有提高价格的空间。经济学家说，没有稳定、适度的通货膨胀，企业的利润——以及工人的工资——就会一直萎靡不振。 |
| The government has long tried to find something, anything, to stimulate the economy and push up prices. It has pumped money into financial markets and made borrowing nearly free. But it’s been to little avail, as expectations of low prices have become entrenched, demand has been weakened by Japan’s aging population and globalization has kept prices down. | 政府长期以来一直试图找到一些办法来刺激经济、推高价格，任何办法都好。它向金融市场注入大量资金，使得借贷几乎免费。但是收效甚微，因为人们对低价格的预期已经根深蒂固，日本人口老龄化削弱了需求，而全球化又压低了价格。 |
| The coronavirus has only compounded Japan’s challenges. Over the last two years, the country has yo-yoed between contraction and expansion even as other major economies have rapidly rebounded. | 新冠病毒加剧了日本的挑战。在过去两年里，尽管其他主要经济体已经迅速反弹，但日本经济却在收缩和扩张之间摇摆不定。 |
| As the pandemic grinds on, the Japanese government has turned to even larger amounts of stimulus, showering consumers with cash handouts and companies with zero-interest loans. But inflation has barely budged, even as pandemic-induced shortages and supply-chain snarls have caused it to jump elsewhere. | 随着疫情持续，日本政府转向规模更大的刺激措施，向消费者大量发放现金，向企业提供零利率贷款。但通货膨胀率几乎没有变化，而在其他国家，疫情导致的短缺和供应链混乱导致通货膨胀率上升。 |
| The reaction to the wage proposal is an inauspicious sign for Mr. Kishida, who took office two months ago promising to reverse the economic damage of the past two years and put Japan’s economy back on track through a “new capitalism.” | 对岸田文雄来说，薪资提案引发的反应是个不祥的信号。他两个月前上任时承诺，要扭转过去两年的经济损失，通过“新资本主义”让日本经济重回正轨。 |
| Mr. Kishida’s plan is a first step toward defining the still nebulous concept, which he has described as a framework for creating sustainable growth and reducing economic inequality. | 岸田文雄将他的“新资本主义”描述为创造可持续增长和减少经济不平等的框架，他目前的计划是朝这个依然模糊的概念迈出的第一步。 |
| As a start, the prime minister is calling on employers to increase pay as much as 4 percent in 2022. Companies that comply will be allowed to increase their overall corporate tax deductions by up to 40 percent. The government has announced that it will raise officially regulated wages 3 percent next year for nurses and workers providing care for children and seniors. | 首先，首相呼吁雇主在2022年将工资提高4%。遵守规定的公司将被允许增加其整体的公司税减免，最高可达40%。政府表示，明年将把护士、以及老人儿童护理者的官方规定工资提高3%。 |
| At a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Kishida said it was “vital for the country to take every measure to create an atmosphere where companies feel like they can raise wages.” Increasing pay “is not a cost,” he added. “It’s an investment in the future.” | 岸田文雄在周二的新闻发布会上表示，“国家采取一切措施，创造一个让企业感到可以提高工资的氛围，这一点至关重要。”他还说，加薪“不是一种成本”，“而是对未来的投资”。 |
| While many businesses have recognized the need for higher wages, they have questioned whether the measures, as announced, will have any impact on the country’s regular pay-setting process. | 尽管许多企业已经认识到提高工资的必要性，但他们质疑岸田宣布的这些措施是否会对国家的常规薪酬制定过程产生影响。 |
| Major companies and unions negotiate raises each spring in a ritual known as “shuntou” — literally, “spring offensive.” The last time the result even approached Mr. Kishida’s recommended level was in 1997, when workers won a 2.9 percent raise. | 每年春天，大公司和工会都会通过谈判提高工资，这一仪式被称为“春斗”，字面意义是“春季的斗争”。上一次工资涨幅接近此次岸田文雄建议的水平是在1997年，当时工人获得了2.9%的加薪。 |
| In 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe introduced a similar plan, with little success. Today, average wages remain stuck at around $2,800 a month, about the same level as two decades ago. | 2013年，日本首相安倍晋三推出了类似的计划，但收效甚微。今天，平均工资仍然停留在每月2800美元左右，与20年前的水平差不多。 |
| The phenomenon is not unique to Japan. In most advanced economies, the once tight correlation between economic growth and increases in pay has broken down. In the United States and the European Union, median real wages — actual purchasing power — fell far behind overall economic expansion in the decade leading up to the pandemic. | 这种现象并非日本独有。在大多数发达经济体中，经济增长与工资增长之间曾经的紧密联系已经打破。在美国和欧盟，实际工资中位数——实际购买力——在大流行之前的十年里远远落后于整体经济的扩张。 |
| There is no consensus on the cause of the phenomenon. But many economists attribute it to a “winner takes most” dynamic in nations where globalization and technological advances have allowed firms to make more money with fewer workers. | 对于这一现象的原因还没有达成共识。但许多经济学家将其归因于一些国家的“赢家通吃”趋势，在这些国家，全球化和技术进步使得企业可以用更少的工人赚更多的钱。 |
| The story is different in Japan, where economists point to a nearly opposite problem: low productivity created, in part, by companies with large reserves of workers who are nearly impossible to fire. | 日本的情况则不同，经济学家指出了一个几乎相反的问题：低生产率，这在一定程度上是因为公司拥有大量的工人储备，几乎不可能被解雇。 |
| That has been both a blessing and a curse. During the pandemic, Japan has avoided the unemployment spikes seen in countries like the United States. But it has also meant that many companies have limited flexibility in hiring and firing under the system of lifetime employment, potentially making them less responsive to changing economic conditions. | 这既是一种祝福，也是一种诅咒。在大流行期间，日本避免了美国等国家出现的失业率飙升。但这也意味着，在终身雇佣制下，许多公司在招聘和解雇员工方面的灵活性有限，这可能使它们对不断变化的经济状况反应迟钝。 |
| Low wage growth is effectively the outcome of a compromise struck between labor and capital. Since the 1990s, “Japanese workers have preferred job security over wage growth,” said Naohiko Baba, chief Japan economist at Goldman Sachs, though companies do pay workers biannual bonuses that can fluctuate significantly with corporate profits. | 低工资增长实际上是劳资双方达成妥协的结果。高盛首席日本经济学家马场直彦表示，自1990年代以来，“与工资增长相比，日本工人更喜欢工作保障，”尽管企业确实会向员工支付一年两次的奖金，数额可能会随着企业利润而大幅波动。 |
| To protect their bottom lines, companies tend to limit their permanent work force through the use of temporary or part-time workers, avoiding the work-for-life contracts that were common in Japan through the early 1990s, when the country’s economic bubble burst. | 为了保持盈利，企业倾向于通过使用临时或兼职员工来限制固定员工数量，避免1990年代初日本经济泡沫破灭时普遍存在的终身劳动合同。 |
| Today, so-called nonregular employees make up around 37 percent of the country’s labor force, a permanent underclass of low-paid, dispensable workers, nearly 70 percent of whom are women. | 如今，所谓的非正式员工占到了该国劳动力的37%左右，这是一个由低薪、可抛弃的工人组成的永久性底层，其中近70%是女性。 |
| Those workers are paid less than their counterparts, and their increasing numbers have depressed wages in part by weakening Japan’s labor organizations. In the 1950s, over half of all Japanese workers were in unions. Today, only around 17 percent are. | 这些工人的工资低于同行，其人数的不断增加在一定程度上削弱了日本的劳工组织，从而压低了工资。在1950年代，超过一半的日本工人都是工会成员。如今，这一比例仅为17%左右。 |
| Given the downward forces on wages, it’s not clear that any government policy can push up pay, especially when a longstanding labor shortage, driven by Japan’s graying population, has failed to make salaries budge. | 考虑到工资的下行趋势，目前还不清楚政府是否有任何政策可以推高工资，尤其是目前日本人口老龄化导致的长期劳动力短缺也未能带来工资上涨。 |
| The timing of Mr. Kishida’s plan is also problematic. With many companies already struggling because of the pandemic, some have had to turn to large government subsidies just to keep their current work forces employed. | 岸田文雄计划的时机也存在问题。许多公司已经因疫情而陷入困境，一些公司不得不求助于大量的政府补贴，以保持现有劳动力的就业。 |
| And then there is the issue of unprofitability. For nearly a decade, a majority of Japanese businesses have been unprofitable — around 65 percent in 2019, the lowest figure since 2010. They have been kept afloat by cheap money underwritten by the Bank of Japan, but no profits mean no corporate tax liability, so those businesses would not be eligible for Mr. Kishida’s incentives. | 此外，还有无法盈利的问题。近十年来，多数日本企业没有盈利——2019年约占65%，是自2010年以来的最低水平。这些企业一直靠日本央行提供的廉价贷款维持运营，但没有利润意味着没有企业纳税义务，因此这些企业没有资格享受岸田文雄的激励措施。 |
| As proposed, Mr. Kishida’s plan might actually concentrate more wealth among the most successful companies while providing little succor to employees at smaller, less viable firms, said Daiji Kawaguchi, a professor of economics at the University of Tokyo. | 东京大学经济学教授川口大司说，岸田文雄的计划实际上可能会把更多财富集中在最成功的公司，对于那些规模较小、生存能力较差的公司的员工几乎没有什么帮助。 |
| “It could potentially be really regressive,” he said. | “这其实可能是一种倒退，”他说。 |
| Even if the prime minister can persuade companies to raise wages, there is no guarantee that the money will be spent. Last year, after the government issued cash payments to every person in the country, consumers squirreled the money away in the bank as a hedge against an uncertain future, driving household savings rates to their highest levels in 20 years. | 即使首相能说服企业提高工资，也不能保证这些钱一定会被花掉。去年，在政府向全国每个人发放现金后，消费者将钱存在银行，作为对不确定的未来的一种保值手段，将家庭储蓄率推至20年来的最高水平。 |
| To many workers, the political focus on raising wages is misplaced. Other workplace issues are more pressing. | 对许多工人来说，把政治焦点放在提高工资上是不恰当的。其他职场问题更为紧迫。 |
| “The problem that exists in the labor market is more likely to be employment protection, or child care, or the kinds of benefits you need to manage work and family,” said Yukiko Abe, a professor of economics at Hokkaido University. | 北海道大学经济学教授安倍由起子说，“劳动力市场存在的问题更有可能是就业保护、儿童保育，乃至管理工作和家庭所需的各种福利。” |
| Mr. Yoshimura, the head of the men’s clothing company, agrees that the government is trying to solve the wrong problem. | 男装公司的负责人吉村雅隆也认为政府是在试图解决错误的问题。 |
| He believes wages are important, but argues that the government needs to help companies first. | 他认为工资很重要，但认为政府需要首先帮助企业。 |
| “If we don’t create an environment where we can raise revenues a little higher,” he said, “the economy won’t improve.” | “如果我们不能创造一个可以把收入提高一点的环境，经济就不会改善，”他说。 |
OK阅读网 版权所有(C)2017 | 联系我们