学习德国好榜样

“德国模式”为大西洋两岸所瞩目。美国政商界意识到，仅靠州之间在税收上的竞争并不是长久的成功之道，美国应借鉴德国强大竞争力的秘诀：教育体制。与德国相比，美国的劳动力显得“既技能不足，又教育过度”：一方面350万空缺岗位找不到合适员工，一方面大量拥有学位的的哥和门卫在为偿还学生贷款而发愁……

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

State of the Union speech 美国总统每年在国会发表的《国情咨文》。今年，奥巴马引用西门子高管的话，说如果美国提升基础设施，可以吸引外资创造更多就业。

vocational education 职业教育

apprentice [ə'prentɪs] n.学徒

apprenticeship [ə'prentɪ(s)ʃɪp] n.学徒制，被认为是德国工业实力的基础。

participation rate劳动参与率，是经济活动人口（就业者+失业者，失业者为失业但积极寻找工作者）占劳动年龄人口（一般15-65岁）的比率。

pilgrimage ['pɪlgrɪmɪdʒ] n.朝圣

casino [kə'siːnəʊ] n.赌场

covet ['kʌvɪt] v.垂涎

nocturnal [nɒk'tɜːn(ə)l] adj.夜间的

rejuvenate [rɪ'dʒuːvəneɪt] v.使复原，使年轻

pipe fitters and boilermakers 管道工和锅炉工

Why the US is looking to Germany (931 words)

By Edward Luce

When asked by Tony Blair for the secret of her country’s resilience, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said: “We still make things.” It is a question you often hear in the US nowadays. It would be an exaggeration to say Germany is back in fashion. There is too much disapproval of Berlin’s handling of the eurozone crisis for that. Yet when it comes to the labour market, the US is suffering from a rising case of “German envy”, as one analyst puts it.

“People are continually asking me how we do it,” says Eric Spiegel, the US chief executive of Siemens, which has the distinction of being cited by Barack Obama in his last two State of the Union speeches. Getting a “shout out” from the US president may sound trivial – although executives at unuttered competitors, such as General Electric, do not see it that way. But Mr Obama was only repeating what was being widely said by many business leaders and trade unionists in the US. “Can we replicate the German model?” asks a centrist Democratic senator.

As a package, the answer is no. Germany channels roughly half of all high-school students into the vocational education stream from the age of 16. In the US that would be seen as too divisive, even un-American. More than 40 per cent of Germans become apprentices. Only 0.3 per cent of the US labour force does so. But with the US participation rate continuing to plummet – last month another 496,000 Americans gave up looking for work – many US politicians are scouring Germany for answers.

It is turning into something of a pilgrimage. Rick Snyder, the Republican governor of Michigan, and John Kasich, Republican governor of Ohio, have both recently toured vocational academies in Germany. The German embassy in Washington has even set up a programme called the “skills initiative” to cater to all the questions from the heartlands.

“The US is not a developing country so we don’t need to send teams of technical advisers into the field,” one German diplomat said. “We are just trying to respond to the curiosity about the German model.”

The longer the US recovery continues, the more that curiosity increases. The US faces a deepening mismatch between what its labour market needs and what the education system is producing. There are two sides to this paradox. First, the US is underskilled. It has high unemployment at a time when there are 3.5m job vacancies, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some economists argue that the US “skills gap” is imaginary – a shortage of engineers would have shown up in salary inflation, which has not happened. The average hourly cost of a US manufacturing worker is $32. In Germany it is $48. Yet US employers insist the shortage of skilled labour is a growing problem.

US states tend to outbid each other with tax breaks. This works well for casinos. But many states, such as Michigan and Ohio, are realising that what desirable investors most covet is skilled labour. According to the OECD, the US comes last out of 29 countries in terms of the work readiness of its high-school leavers. And 46 per cent of those who go to college fail to complete their four-year degree within six years. “Getting a tax holiday does not make up for having a bad business plan, it just delays the pain,” says a senior US executive at Daimler, the German carmaker, which has several US plants. “If you have a good plan, what you are really looking for is good people.”

Second, the US is overqualified. Almost half of Americans with a degree are in jobs that do not require one, according to a study by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Fifteen per cent of taxi drivers in the US have a degree, up from 1 per cent in 1970. Likewise, 25 per cent of sales clerks are graduates, against 5 per cent in 1970. An astonishing 5 per cent of janitors now have a bachelor’s degree. They must offer endless nocturnal moments to repent those student loans. Only at the top of the system do the labour and education markets mesh well. PhDs and postgraduates are the only US category to enjoy rising incomes, often dramatically so.

For a company such as Siemens, which has 60,000 American employees and recently reintroduced train manufacturing to the US (in a plant near Sacramento), the answer is simple. The US needs to rejuvenate its community colleges, which offer two-year vocational degrees but are often starved of funds. And it needs to fall back in love with apprenticeships. Benjamin Franklin started off as a printer’s apprentice in Boston. Many US trade unions, such as the pipe fitters and boilermakers, used to train their own. Perhaps they should remember their history.

Siemens, meanwhile, is angling for a third Obama mention. The group recently had 2,000 applications for 50 vacancies in North Carolina. Only 10 per cent passed the aptitude test. At a cost of $165,000 an apprentice, Siemens is training six local high-school leavers in “mechatronics”, a hybrid of mechanical engineering and computer science. These are robot supervisors. The company hopes apprenticeships will catch on in the US. It graduates 10,000 a year in Germany, a country that seems to have fewer problems with the underskilled or the overqualified. “There is a great potential for the reshoring of manufacturing to the US,” Mr Spiegel says. “But if companies have problems finding qualified people, a lot of it won’t happen.”

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.Why US politicians are "scouring Germany for answers"?

A. Because President Obama called for "learning from Germany".

B. Only 0.3% of Americans become apprentices.

C. They are disappointed by the job market.

D. Because other European countried are also learning from Germany.

答案(1)

2.What can we learn about "something of a pilgrimage"?

A. Republicans are more keen on learning from Germany.

B. Many US companies are inviting German technical advisers.

C. The German embassy is sponsoring skills training programs.

D. States like Michigan and Ohio are struggling to revive manufacturing.

答案(2)

3.Which of the following can support the argument that the US faces "a deepening mismatch" between its labour market and education system?

A. US has high unemployment together with 3.5m job vacancies.

B. A shortage of engineers does not raise the wage level.

C. 25% of sales clerks are graduates, against 5% in 1970.

D. All of above.

答案(3)

4.For US policy makers, what might be the best treatment for the problem?

A. Increasing financial support for college student loans.

B. Attracting more German companies to invest in America.

C. Reviving America's good old tradition of apprenticeships.

D. Reshoring manufacturing back to the US.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：C.They are disappointed by the job market.

解释：A也不对，因为Mr. Obama was only repeating what was being widely said... B实际上是解释为什么将德国模式整体打包过来不可能。至于D，骄傲的美国人怎么肯跟欧洲人亦步亦趋？ 为何要用scouring擦亮这个词呢？也许是美国人像阿拉丁对神灯一样寻求答案吧。

(2) 答案：D.States like Michigan and Ohio are struggling to revive manufacturing.

解释：A未提到，民主党的奥巴马和一位参议员也主张学习德国。BC也未提到，原文是德国外交官说，我们不需要向对发展中国家那样派出技术顾问团，只需要解答美国人的好奇。 五大湖“铁锈州”作为衰落的老工业地带，把目光放在制造业强大的德国，希望学习德国的职业教育，这是非常符合逻辑的事。读懂财经文章文字背后的含义，需要积累一些知识：铁锈地带深刻影响了美国的经济、政治和文化。

(3) 答案：C.25% of sales clerks are graduates, against 5% in 1970.

解释：A无疑可以支持“美国人才市场失衡很严重”这一判断，但不能支持“越来越失衡”的判断。注意问题中的deepening，讲的是一个动态的过程。B也类似，工程师的短缺只能说明“失衡严重”，而工资水平未提高的原因很多（比如外包和印度、中国的技术移民），但不可能是“失衡更严重”。按道理说，如果工程师越来越供不应求，工资水平应该上涨的。C是从overqualified这一角度的准确回答：越来越多的大学生找不到脑力工作，只能去做售货员、门卫和的哥。（当然作者丝毫没有对这些岗位的不敬。）

(4) 答案：C.Reviving America's good old tradition of apprenticeships.

解释：通读全文可知，AB两项甚至可能使问题恶化：已经有很多人本可以通过职业教育找到好工作，却读了耗资不菲的大学而后悔；另外，文章最后引用西门子美国CEO说，如果在美国找不到合适的人才，企业是不愿意把制造业带回美国的。作者在倒数第二段还引用本·富兰克林，强调说学徒制并非德国特有，它其实根植于美国的传统之中。Perhaps they should remember their history.

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