Trend Analysis
趋势分析

Interviewer: We have with us in the studio Nicola Bayleigh, our social affairs commentator, to give us some perspective on the changes that have taken place in our working lives over the last twenty years or so. Good morning, Nicola.
采访记者:我们邀请了社会评论员尼古拉? 贝利给我们讲解在过去的二十年里我们工作生活的变化。尼古拉,早上好。

Nicola: Good morning.
尼古拉:早上好。

Interviewer: Now, we hear an awful lot these days about the end to a job for life, the rise of flexible working, the numbers of women now engaged in employment and so on. It’s very different from our parents’ day, isn’t it?
采访记者:最近我们听到很多可怕的情况,不再为了生活而工作,更多灵活工作制,女性更多地参与工作等等。这些都跟父辈情况很不同,是吗?

Nicola: Well, it’s true there’s a lot more terminology around these days. Anyone would think from listening to the media that some kind of social revolution was going on.
尼古拉:确实是,现在有很多此类术语。通过媒体,每个人都认为某种社会改革正在进行中。

Interviewer: And are you saying that these are not real trends for the future?
采访记者:你的意思是这些并不是未来发展的真正趋势?

Nicola: I’m not saying these phenomena are not present today, but I just think we need to put them into some kind of perspective. Traditional 9 to 5 working is not going to disappear quite as fast as some analysts would like to believe.
尼古拉:我并不是指这些现象不存在,我只是认为我们应该正确看待它们。传统的朝九晚五工作时间制并不会像一些分析家认为的那样,会很快消失。

Interviewer: I think you have some interesting figures from recent research on the subject ...
采访记者:您从最近的调查中得到关于这个话题的有趣数据……

Nicola: That’s right. If you look at the proportion of working people in Britain today who have a permanent contract of employment, for example, you’ll find it’s not very much different from twenty years ago. It’s still around 80%. And around 30% of us have had the same job for more than ten years, which is also little changed from the past.
尼古拉:是的。例如,看一下英国拥有长期工作合同的人群比例,你就会发现与二十年前并没有很大不同,还是保持在百分之八十左右。有百分之三十的人做同样的工作超过十年,这也跟以前差不多。

Interviewer: That doesn’t mean that people necessarily feel more secure, though …采访记者:但这并不能说明他们必定会感到更有保障……

Nicola: Oh, no. Employers still retain the right to use redundancy as a way of reducing their labour force, for example. But the idea that most of us are moving from one temporary job to another is not borne out by the figures. Temporary employment only accounts for about 6% of all jobs.
尼古拉:不是这样的,比如说雇主还是拥有通过裁员减少劳动力的权利的。但是这些数据并不能证实大多数人经常换临时工作,临时工作只是在总数中占百分之六而已。

Interviewer: Well, let’s talk about women’s employment. Isn’t it true that there are far more women in the workplace today?
采访记者:好的,让我们谈论女性就业问题。现在已经有更多的女性参与工作了,是吗?

Nicola: Oh yes, there are certainly more women with dependent children in the workforce than before, but the overall proportion of women in full-?time work hasn’t really changed in twenty-?five years, especially in the more traditional sectors – clerical, secretarial and sales jobs.
尼古拉:是的。比起以前,现在有更多的有小孩的女性参与工作,但是全职女性所占的比例二十年来都没有多大改变,特别是一些较传统的职业,比如文书,秘书和销售工作。

Interviewer: And what about specific patterns of working? Is it true there’s more part?-time work in the UK compared to the rest of Europe? And aren't we working longer hours than before?
采访记者:那工作的具体模式呢?英国与欧洲的其他地方相比较,是不是有更多的兼职工作?我们的工作时间也比以前长了呢?

Nicola: Well, yes, both of these are unfortunately true. A third of us work more than 46 hours a week, while for other European countries it’s not much more than 10%.
尼古拉:是的,很遗憾这都是真的。我们有三分之一的人一星期工作超过四十六个小时,其他的欧洲国家则不超过百分之十。

Interviewer: So much for new technology liberating us to do other things. And how about the golden future where we are all engaged in ‘flexible working’? Is this a reality today?
采访记者:新科技解放我们去做其他事情,原来也不过如此。那我们有灵活的工作时间这个美好的未来呢?现在来说会成真吗?

Nicola: Again, if you look at how many people have some formal agreement, for example to annualise their hours or job share, it's only about 20% of us. The old working patterns persist …
尼古拉:再次说明,看看有多少人有正式协议说明时间和分工的,我们之中就只有百分之二十。旧的工作模式坚持……