A、Employees and companies cooperate to pull through the economic crisis. B、Government and companies join hands to create jobs fo

A recent International Labor Organization report says the deterioration of real wages around the world calls into question the true extent of an economic recovery, especially if government rescue packages are phased out too early. The report warns the picture on wages is likely to get worse this year despite indications of an economic rebound. Patrick Belser, an International Labor Organization specialist says declining wage rates are linked to the levels of unemployment. “The quite dramatic unemployment figures, which we now see in some of the countries strongly suggest that there will be greater pressure on wages in the future as more people will be unemployed, more people will be looking for jobs and the pressure on employers to raise wages to attract workers will decline. So, we expect that the second part of the year will not be very good in terms of wage growth.” The report finds more than a quarter of the countries experienced flat or falling monthly wages in real terms. They include the United States, Austria, Costa Rica, South Africa and Germany. International Labor Organization economists say some nations have come up with policies to lessen the impact of lower wages during the economic crisis. An example of these is Work Sharing with government subsidies. Under this scheme, the number of individual working hours is reduced in an effort to avoid layoffs. For this scheme to work, the government must provide wage subsidies to compensate for lost pay due to the shorter hours.
    Question 9. What is the International Labor Organization’s report mainly about?
    Question 10. According to an International Labor Organization’s specialist, how will employers feel if there are more people looking for jobs?
    Question 11. What does the speaker mean by the Work Sharing scheme?