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  3. Britain’s flexible labour market was a boon during the economic slump, helping keep joblessness down and then, when the recovery

Britain’s flexible labour market was a boon during the economic slump, helping keep joblessness down and then, when the recovery

admin2019-06-06  76
问题    Britain’s flexible labour market was a boon during the economic slump, helping keep joblessness down and then, when the recovery began, allowing employment to rise. Yet one of its bendier bits is causing politicians to fret. Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, has promised a crackdown on "zero-hours contracts" if he wins the next election. The government has launched a consultation.
   Zero-hours contracts allow firms to employ workers for as few or as many hours as they need, with no prior notice. In theory, at least, people can refuse work. Fully 1.4m jobs were based on these contracts in January 2014, according to a snapshot taken by the Office for National Statistics. That is just 4% of the total, but the share rises to a quarter in the hospitality business.
   The contracts are useful for firms with erratic patterns of demand, such as hotels and restaurants. They have also helped firms to expand during the recovery—allowing them to test new business lines before hiring permanent staff, who would be more costly to make redundant if things went wrong.
   Flexibility suits some workers, too. According to one survey, 47% of those employed on zero-hours contracts were content to have no minimum contracted hours. Many of these workers are in full-time education. The ability to turn down work is important to students, who want to revise (or sit in the sun) at this time of year. Pensioners keen for a little extra income can often live with the uncertainty of not having guaranteed hours.
   Yet that leaves more than a quarter of workers on zero-hours contracts who say they are unhappy with their conditions. Some of this is cyclical. During recessions, a dearth of permanent positions forces people into jobs with no contracted hours even if they do not want them (the government has just said that unemployed people who refuse to accept zero-hours contracts could be cut off from benefits). Underemployment is particularly prevalent among these workers, 35% of whom would like more hours compared with 12% in other jobs. As the economy recovers, many should be able to renegotiate their contracts or find permanent jobs.
   But the recovery will not cause unwanted zero-hours contracts to disappear. Some workers will never have much negotiating power: they are constrained by geography, family commitments and lack of competition for their skills among a small number of big employers. Zero-hours contracts make it easier for employers to abuse their labour-market power. Some use them to avoid statutory obligations such as sick and maternity pay. Workers are penalised for not being available when requested. And some contracts contain exclusivity clauses which prevent workers from taking additional jobs. These can harm other employers as well as workers, and actually reduce labour market flexibility. That, at least, is worth doing away with.
What can we infer from the last two paragraphs?
选项 A、Many workers on zero-hours contracts are often unsatisfied with their conditions.
B、Many people don’t want to join permanent work.
C、Economic recovery will eventually lead to zero-hours contracts out of date.
D、Reducing labour-market flexibility is not the original idea of zero-hours contracts.
答案D
解析 推理判断题。解决此题的关键是通读段落后找到四个选项在段落中的位置，通读第五段可以得出零时工合同的影响即：Yet that leaves more than a quarter of workers on zero-hours contracts who say they are unhappy with their conditions．(然而，25％以上的零时合同工对自己的工作环境不满。)25％并不等同于很多，同时第六段结尾处也说了工人的初衷并不是要降低市场灵活性，与这个信息相对应的选项为D项Reducing labour-market flexibility is not the original idea of zero-hours contracts．“减少劳动力市场的灵活性并不是零时工合同最初的目标”。所以D项为正确选项。
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