2. 外语
  3. As any middle-class parent knows, unpaid work experience can give youngsters a valuable introduction to a secure job. The govern

As any middle-class parent knows, unpaid work experience can give youngsters a valuable introduction to a secure job. The govern

admin2016-08-30  51
问题     As any middle-class parent knows, unpaid work experience can give youngsters a valuable introduction to a secure job. The government has recognized it too, abandoning rules in 2011 that had formerly stopped 16 to 24-year-olds from doing unpaid work while claiming unemployment benefit. But moving from that to forcing them to work without pay in order to collect these benefits has proved a big step.
    More than one million young people in Britain are unemployed, the highest number since the mid-1980s. Keen both to cut the welfare bill and to avoid the depressed future wages that may result from early unemployment, the government has introduced an ambitious program of reform to get youngsters off welfare and into work. A key part of it is ensuring that no one gets benefit from the government for long: ministers are keen to avoid what happened after the early-1980s recession(衰退), when unemployment continued in some parts of the country for a long time after the economy began to improve.
    To help young people into work, ministers had persuaded lots of employers, including bakery chains, bookshops and supermarkets, to take on unemployed youths, who receive work experience but no pay, with the prospect of a proper job for those who shine. Some 35,000 youngsters participated last year: half found paid work soon after finishing the scheme.
    The idea of getting young adults used to showing up for work is popular with voters: according to a survey published in February, about 60% of people support the program. Equally attractive was the option of compelling them to work: Under the existing arrangements youngsters could choose whether or not to accept a place, but if they dropped out after the end of the first week, they stood to lose up to two weeks’ benefits.
    Yet the scheme has also polarized(两极分化的)opinion: a third of people are consistently opposed. Following a noisy "Right to Work" campaign that accused employers of co-operating secretly with the government in " forced labor" , several firms dropped out of the program. To prevent this from getting worse, Chris Grayling, an employment minister, admitted that young people could leave their work experience at any time without being punished for doing so. This not only halted the flight of employers(for now, at least)but also enabled him to announce that new firms have agreed to take part in the program.
According to the author, the British government is trying to______.
选项 A、punish young people if they are not cooperating with it
B、reform the unemployed youngsters
C、avoid the economic slowdown
D、reduce welfare spending
答案D
解析 推理题。根据文章第二段的第二句，意为政府既想削减福利开支，同时又想避免年轻人因早期失业而导致将来收入减少…，故只有D项符合。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/YcRO777K
0

成人本科学位英语

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)