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  3. How to Manage an Ageing Workforce One of the side-effects of the Second World War was the most significant social change of

How to Manage an Ageing Workforce One of the side-effects of the Second World War was the most significant social change of

admin2012-07-11  27
问题                     How to Manage an Ageing Workforce
    One of the side-effects of the Second World War was the most significant social change of the past half-century. As men marched off to fight, women put aside their beauty magazines and gardening gloves and took their husbands places in factories and on the farms. They never looked back. Many people worry about the impact on family life of their entry into the labor force,but most now take it for granted that women have as much to offer at work as men do.
    Another change as large as that one is now under way. It seems just as absurd, if not more, that Western societies today are content to press another potentially productive set of workers to stay at home sipping tea and potting plants—and to pay them for it,by the way.
    The question of how to deal with the growing number of retired people has recently been seen as chiefly a financial puzzle:how to pay for the leisure of those ageing layabouts (无事闲人). When pensions were first introduced, they kicked in at the age of 70, about 20 years more than the typical life span. Nowadays state and company pension schemes kick in at or before 65,almost 20 years less. But the issue is more than just a financial one: it raises social as well as economic questions, and its resolution will involve governments,employers and people.
    The baby-boom generation,which started to turn 65 this year,contains the largest number of people ever voluntarily to give up work in such a short time. Because it is far larger than the generation that follows it—or any that preceded it,this casts a shadow over the companies it is set to leave behind. Japan expects its workforce to shrink by 18% (some 120 million people) over the next 15 years. Europe will see the number of workers nearing retirement grow by a quarter. Some companies are already complaining of a shortage of skills, even before they have started to give out carriage clocks and fountain pens by the borrow-load.
    There are several ways of dealing with a falling supply of labor: work might be shifted offshore,to take advantage of abundant cheaper workers in poorer countries;laxer (更加宽松的) immigration rules might allow in more skilled labor from abroad;new equipment could enhance the productivity of a better educated workforce. But one of the readiest sources of skilled labor is closer to hand.
    If staying on at work were up to older employees alone, many would jump at the chance. That is partly because they will no longer be able to retire in the style that they have been led to expect. Corporate pension schemes and health benefits are becoming ever less generous. Last week, General Motors joined the line of revisionists with an announcement that it will cap health-care spending by its retired workers. That will not be the last cut.
    Baby-boomers say they want to stay in the workforce for more than money. Many also want to carry on working beyond the standard retirement age for the mental stimulation (try that on the next bored-looking 20-year-old you meet in the lift). Their productivity may decline as they get older—although people gain in experience,their capacity for sharp thinking falls off—but the traditional pattern of retirement, in which one day an employee is in a bustling office busy as a bee and the next he is good only for the potting shed and the fireside chair does not make sense for the economy,for companies or for people.
    If baby-boomers want to work longer and companies want more skilled workers, what’s the problem? Part of the answer is that labor markets work particularly badly for older workers. Pensions need to be unhooked from final salaries, so that workers are not heavily penalized if they take pay cuts to stay in employment. That is already happening, with the decline of companies’ defined-benefit schemes. State and private pensions should encourage workers to postpone retirement. That is already happening in Sweden and Switzerland,which both have relatively high labor-participation rates among older people.
    Pensions should be designed so that they allow part-time workers to continue to contribute even after their official retirement age. Since governments benefit if people work longer (because they pay more in tax and cost less in benefits) they should be eagerly enacting such measures. But instead of freeing up labor markets to help older people work, governments are focusing on legislating to ban discrimination on grounds of age.
    European Union member countries and Australia are introducing such laws, even though experience in America,where they are already in force,suggests that making older people hard to fire discourages companies from hiring them. Companies,as well as governments,need to be flexible. That’s beginning to happen,partly because employers are keen to attract more women,and the part-time jobs that often appeal to them are attractive to the old as well. Big, well managed companies tend to offer that sort of flexibility ; others will have to learn.
    Lastly, older workers need to adapt. In many cultures, age is related to seniority, and therefore to pay. The older the worker,the more expensive he or she is. Boomers will find work only if they accept that their wages will be based on what they are worth to the company—rather than their salary at the top of their career. Although a shortage of skills might well push up wages for all workers, older workers may nevertheless have to accept a relative decline in salary and status.
    Given that most societies are geared to retirement at around 65, companies have a looming problem of knowledge management, of making sure that the boomers do not leave before they have handed over their expertise.
    When the baby-boomer generation retires, many companies will find out too late that a career’s worth of experience has walked out the door,leaving insufficient talents to fill the void. Some also face a shortage of expertise. In aerospace and defense, for example, as much as 40% of the workforce in some companies will be eligible (有资格) to retire within the next two or three years. At the same time,the number of engineering graduates in developed countries is in steep decline.
    Baby-boomers have been changing the world since the 1960s. They’re about to do it again by turning the world of work upside down. This social upheaval may be quieter than the last one they were responsible for,but its consequences will be more profound and longer lasting.  
What kind of pressing issue are Japanese companies facing because of the ageing workforce?
选项 A、Shortage of cheap labor supplies.
B、Burdens on new staff training.
C、Recruitments of qualified workers.
D、Vacancies in technical positions.
答案C
解析 由定位句可知，日本预计未来15年劳动力将减少18％(约120万人)。现在就已经有公司抱怨人手不足了。因此，日本企业所面临的最为紧迫的问题是缺乏有技术的劳动力，而这正是由大量有经验的老年员工退休引起的。所以C)“招聘有经验的劳动力人口”为本题答案。
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