按: 今天是《经济学人》特别报道之《终身学习，经济必须》的第二部分，文章稍长，但绝对值得一读。看完之后你会发现——编程是一项多么重要的技能啊! 学习编程，应该从娃娃抓起。

阅读时请思考:

1. 为了适应社会变化我们应该如何学习？
2. 如何用英语表达:

• 出现问题
• 先于
• 扰乱、破坏
• 被挤出
• 易受影响
• 总体上
• 因……受到赞扬
• 因为……的影响
• 对未来的一瞥
• 炒作

Learning and earning

Lifelong learning is becoming an economic imperative(2)

终身学习，经济必须(2)

A question of degree, and then some

7. The decision to go to college still makes sense for most, but the idea of a mechanistic relationship between education and wages has taken a knock. A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre showed that a mere 16% of Americans think that a four-year degree course prepares students very well for a high-paying job in the modern economy. Some of this may be a cyclical effect of the financial crisis and its economic aftermath. Some of it may be simply a matter of supply: as more people hold college degrees, the associated premium goes down. But technology also seems to be complicating the picture.
   教育和收入之间的关系变得更为复杂。

taken a knock:to have some bad luck or trouble
e.g. Clive's taken quite a few hard knocks lately.
aftermath: the period of time after something such as a war, storm, or accident when people are still dealing with the results
e.g. the danger of disease in the aftermath of the earthquake

7）上大学的决定对大多数人来说仍然有意义，但教育和工资之间的机械关系的想法已经有问题了。皮尤研究中心最近进行的一项调查显示，只有16％的美国人认为四年制学位课程为学生在现代经济中高薪工作做好准备。其中部分原因可能是金融危机及其经济后果的周期性影响。部分原因可能只是一个供应问题：随着更多的人持有大学学位，相关的红利下降。但技术似乎也使整个图景变得复杂化。

8. A paper published in 2013 by a trio of Canadian economists, Paul Beaudry, David Green and Benjamin Sand, questions optimistic assumptions about demand for non-routine work. In the two decades prior to 2000, demand for cognitive skills soared as the basic infrastructure of the IT age (computers, servers, base stations and fibre-optic cables) was being built; now that the technology is largely in place, this demand has waned, say the authors. They show that since 2000 the share of employment accounted for by high-skilled jobs in America has been falling. As a result, college-educated workers are taking on jobs that are cognitively less demanding (see chart), displacing less educated workers.
   高技术要求的工作不如设想的那么多。
   8）加拿大经济学家Paul Beaudry，David Green和Benjamin Sand三人在2013年发表的一篇论文对非常规工作需求的乐观假设提出了质疑。在2000年之前的二十年里，随着IT时代的基础设施（计算机，服务器，基站和光纤电缆）的建设，对认知技能的需求飙升；现在该技术已经到位，这种需求已经减少，作者们说。他们表示，自2000年以来，美国高技能工作占据的就业份额一直在下降。因此，受过大学教育的工人正在从事对认知要求不高的工作（见图表），取代受教育程度较低的工人。

9. This analysis buttresses the view that technology is already playing havoc with employment. Skilled and unskilled workers alike are in trouble. Those with a better education are still more likely to find work, but there is now a fair chance that it will be unenjoyable. Those who never made it to college face **being squeezed out of **the workforce altogether. This is the argument of the techno-pessimists, exemplified by the projections of Carl-Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, of Oxford University, who in 2013 famously calculated that 47% of existing jobs in America are susceptible to automation.
   科技对现有工作已经产生威胁。

buttresses: to support a system, idea, argument etc, especially by providing money
e.g. The evidence seemed to buttress their argument.
playing havoc with: if one thing plays havoc with another or wreaks havoc on it, it prevents it from continuing or functioning as normal, or damages it.
e.g. The weather played havoc with airline schedules.
squeezed out: If a person or thing is squeezed out, they are no longer included in something that they were previously involved in.
e.g. Latin and Greek will be squeezed out of school timetables.
e.g. If budgets are cut, vital research may be squeezed out.
are susceptible to: If you are susceptible to something or someone, you are very likely to be influenced by them.
e.g. Older people are more susceptible to infections.
e.g. Young people are the most susceptible to advertisements.

9）这项分析支持了一种观点，即技术已经对就业造成破坏。熟练和不熟练的工人都有麻烦。受教育程度较高的人仍然更有可能找到工作，但现在他们都有可能找到令人不快的工作。那些从来没有上过大学的人面临着全都被挤出工作队伍的困境。这是技术悲观主义者的论点，牛津大学的Carl-Benedikt Frey和Michael Osborne的预测体现了这一点，他们在2013年令人瞩目地计算出美国47％的现有工作容易受到自动化的影响。

10. There is another, less apocalyptic possibility. James Bessen, an economist at Boston University, has worked out the effects of automation on specific professions and finds that since 1980 employment has been growing faster in occupations that use computers than in those that do not. That is because automation tends to affect tasks within an occupation rather than wiping out jobs in their entirety. Partial automation can actually increase demand by reducing costs: despite the introduction of the barcode scanner in supermarkets and the ATM in banks, for example, the number of cashiers and bank tellers has grown.
    科技发展刺激了某些职业的就业增长。

apocalyptic: warning people about terrible events that will happen in the future
e.g. The novel presents us with an apocalyptic vision of the future.
in its/their entirety: including every part
e.g. The film has been shown in its entirety for the first time.

10）有另一个不那么悲观的可能性。波士顿大学经济学家詹姆斯·贝森（James Bessen）研究了自动化对特定职业的影响，发现自1980年以来，使用计算机的职业的就业增长速度快于不使用计算机的职业。这是因为自动化倾向于影响职业内的任务，而不是完全让工作消失。部分自动化实际上可以通过降低成本来增加需求：例如，尽管在超市中和在银行中的ATM中引入了条形码扫描器，但是出纳员和银行柜员的数量却增加了。

11. But even though technology may not destroy jobs in aggregate, it does force change upon many people. Between 1996 and 2015 the share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5% to 21%, eliminating 7m jobs. According to research by Pascual Restrepo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the 2007-08 financial crisis made things worse: between 2007 and 2015 job openings for unskilled routine work suffered a 55% decline relative to other jobs.
    但是科技迫使很多技术含量不高的职位消失。

aggregate: the total after a lot of different figures or points have been added together
e.g. The smaller minorities got an aggregate of 1,327 votes.
e.g. In the aggregate (=as a group or in total) , women outlive men by 7 or more years.

11）但是，即使技术可能不会在总体上破坏工作，它却使许多人被迫改变。在1996年至2015年，在日常办公工作中雇用的美国劳动力的比例从25.5％下降到21％，700万个工作岗位消失了。根据麻省理工学院（MIT）的Pascual Restrepo的研究，2007-08年的金融危机使情况变得更糟：2007年至2015年，对技能要求不高的日常工作职位比其他工作减少了55％。

12. In many occupations it has become essential to acquire new skills as established ones become obsolete. Burning Glass Technologies, a Boston-based startup that analyses labour markets by scraping data from online job advertisements, finds that the biggest demand is for new combinations of skills—what its boss, Matt Sigelman, calls “hybrid jobs”. Coding skills, for example, are now being required well beyond the technology sector. In America, 49% of postings in the quartile of occupations with the highest pay are for jobs that frequently ask for coding skills (see chart). The composition of new jobs is also changing rapidly. Over the past five years, demand for data analysts has grown by 372%; within that segment, demand for data-visualisation skills has shot up by 2,574%.
    很多职位都要求员工学习新技能，比如编程。

scrape: To amass or produce with difficulty; 凑集
e.g. scrape together some cash.

12）在许多职位中，获得新技能变得至关重要，因为现有的职位已经过时了。Burning Glass Technologies是一家波士顿的创业公司，通过从在线招聘广告中提取数据来分析劳动力市场，发现最大的需求是新技能的组合——其老板马特·西格尔曼（Matt Sigelman）称之为“混合型工作”。例如，除技术部门外其他很多部门都要求员工有编程技能。在美国，薪酬最高的四分之一职业中有49％的职位都普遍要求编程技能（见图表）。新工作的组成也在迅速变化。在过去五年中，对数据分析师的需求增长了372％;在该部门内，对数据可视化技能的需求激增了2,574％。

13. A college degree at the start of a working career does not answer the need for the continuous acquisition of new skills, especially as career spans are lengthening. Vocational training is good at giving people job-specific skills, but those, too, will need to be updated over and over again during a career lasting decades. “Germany is often lauded for its apprenticeships, but the economy has failed to adapt to the knowledge economy,” says Andreas Schleicher, head of the education directorate of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. “Vocational training has a role, but training someone early to do one thing all their lives is not the answer to lifelong learning.”
    大学学位已经不能满足职业发展的需求。

laud: to praise someone or something

13）在职业生涯开始时的大学学位不能满足持续获得新技能的需要，特别是随着职业跨度的延长。职业培训对给予人们特定的工作技能是有帮助的，但这些技能也需要在持续几十年的职业生涯中不断更新。“德国经常因其学徒制而受到赞扬，但其经济未能适应知识经济”，经合组织（OECD）(主要是富裕国家的俱乐部))的教育主管，主管安德烈亚斯·施莱歇尔（Andreas Schleicher）说，“职业培训有一定的作用，但是只在早期训练人们终身只做一件事情并不是终身学习的答案。”

14. Such specific expertise is meant to be acquired on the job, but employers seem to have become less willing to invest in training their workforces. In its 2015 Economic Report of the President, America’s Council of Economic Advisers found that the share of the country’s workers receiving either paid-for or on-the-job training had fallen steadily between 1996 and 2008. In Britain the average amount of training received by workers almost halved between 1997 and 2009, to just 0.69 hours a week.
    现在雇员很难在工作中得到培训。

14）这种具体的专业知识本应该在工作中获得，但是雇主似乎不太愿意投资培训他们的工作人员。在总统的2015年经济报告中，美国经济顾问委员会发现，在1996年至2008年期间，该国接受有报酬或在职培训的工人的比例稳步下降。在英国，工人接受的平均培训量几乎在1997年和2009年之间减少了一半，每周只有0.69小时。

15. Perhaps employers themselves are not sure what kind of expertise they need. But it could also be that training budgets are particularly vulnerable to cuts when the pressure is on. Changes in labour-market patterns may play a part too: companies now have a broader range of options for getting the job done, from automation and offshoring to using self-employed workers and crowdsourcing. “Organisations have moved from creating talent to consuming work,” says Jonas Prising, the boss of Manpower, an employment consultancy.
    公司没有动力向自己的员工提供培训。
    15）也许雇主自己不知道他们需要什么样的专业知识。但也可能是，在经济压力下培训预算特别容易受到削减。劳动力市场模式的变化也可能有影响：企业现在拥有更广泛的选择，从自动化和离岸外包到使用自由职业者和众包，从而完成工作。就业咨询公司Manpower的老板Jonas Prizing说：“各公司已经从创造人才转向消费人才。

16. Add all of this up, and it becomes clear that times have got tougher for workers of all kinds. A college degree is still a prerequisite for many jobs, but employers often do not trust it enough to hire workers just on the strength of that, without experience. In many occupations workers on company payrolls face the prospect that their existing skills will become obsolete, yet it is often not obvious how they can gain new ones. “It is now reasonable to ask a marketing professional to be able to develop algorithms,” says Mr Sigelman, “but a linear career in marketing doesn’t offer an opportunity to acquire those skills.” And a growing number of people are self-employed. In America the share of temporary workers, contractors and freelancers in the workforce rose from 10.1% in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015.
    对各种专业的人来说现在的工作面临的挑战都变大了。

on the strength of: If one thing is done on the strength of another, it is done because of the influence of that other thing.
e.g. He was elected to power on the strength of his charisma

16）综上所述，很明显，对各类工人来说这个时代都变得更加艰难。大学学位仍然是找工作的先决条件，但如果没有经验的话，雇主通常不会仅仅因为大学文凭就足够信任并雇佣这些求职者。在许多职业中，拿公司工资的工人面临着他们现有技能将过时的前景，但是他们如何获得新的技能往往不明确。 Sigelman先生说：“现在有理由要求营销专业人员开发算法，但在营销方面的线性职业不能提供获得这些技能的机会。”越来越多的人变成自由职业者。在美国，临时工、合同工和自由职业者在劳动力中的比例从2005年的10.1％上升到2015年的15.8％。

Reboot camp

17. The answer seems obvious. To remain competitive, and to give low- and high-skilled workers alike the best chance of success, economies need to offer training and career-focused education throughout people’s working lives. This special report will chart some of the efforts being made to connect education and employment in new ways, both by smoothing entry into the labour force and by enabling people to learn new skills throughout their careers. Many of these initiatives are still embryonic, but they offer a glimpse into the future and a guide to the problems raised by lifelong reskilling.
    社会需要提供以职业为核心的培训。

17）答案似乎很明显。为了保持竞争力，并为低技术工人和高技能工人提供最好的成功机会，社会需要在人们的整个工作生涯中提供培训和以职业为核心的教育。这份特别报告将呈现一些以新的方式连接教育和就业的举措，这些努力使得人们平稳进入劳动力市场，并在他们的职业生涯中学习新的技能。许多这些举措仍然是初期阶段，但它们提供了对未来的一瞥，并指导我们如何面对终身重新学习带来的问题。

18. Quite a lot is already happening on the ground. General Assembly, for example, is just one of a number of coding-bootcamp providers. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by companies such as Coursera and Udacity, feted at the start of this decade and then dismissed as hype within a couple of years, have embraced new employment-focused business models. LinkedIn, a professional-networking site, bought an online training business, Lynda, in 2015 and is now offering courses through a service called LinkedIn Learning. Pluralsight has a library of on-demand training videos and a valuation in unicorn territory. Amazon’s cloud-computing division also has an education arm.
    很多公司正在做这件事。

on the ground: in the place or situation where something important is happening, rather than somewhere else - used especially in news reports
e.g. While the politicians talk of peace, the situation on the ground remains tense.
fete:To pay honor to; 给予巨大荣誉
hype: (piece of) misleading and exaggerated publicity 天花乱坠的宣传报道
e.g. The public were not fooled by all the hype the press gave the event. 新闻界言过其实的种种报道并没有愚弄得了公众.

18）很多已经正在发生。例如，GA仅仅是众多编程训练营提供者之一。由Coursera和Udacity等公司提供的大规模开放在线课程（MOOC），在十年前开始时受到赞誉，然后在几年内被视为炒作，它们现在已经采用了新的、以就业为导向的业务模式。 LinkedIn是一个专业的人际关系网站，于2015年购买了在线培训业务Lynda，现在通过名为LinkedIn Learning的服务提供课程。 Pluralsight有一个按需定制的培训视频库，被估值为独角兽之一。亚马逊的云计算部门也有一个教育分支。

19. Universities are embracing online and modular learning more vigorously. Places like Singapore are investing heavily in providing their citizens with learning credits that they can draw on throughout their working lives. Individuals, too, increasingly seem to accept the need for continuous rebooting. According to the Pew survey, 54% of all working Americans think it will be essential to develop new skills throughout their working lives; among adults under 30 the number goes up to 61%. Another survey, conducted by Manpower in 2016, found that 93% of millennials were willing to spend their own money on further training. Meanwhile, employers are putting increasing emphasis on learning as a skill in its own right.
    大学、政府、个人都在积极响应终身学习的需求。
    19）大学正在更加积极地接受在线和模块化学习。像新加坡这样的地方正在大力投资，为他们的公民提供学习学分，他们可以用在他们的工作生活中。个人也似乎越来越接受需要不断更新技能这一社会需求。根据皮尤调查，54％的美国工人认为，​​在他们的工作生活中发展新技能是至关重要的；在30岁以下的这一人数上升到61％。 Manpower在2016年进行的另一项调查发现，93％的千禧一代愿意花费自己的钱用于进一步的培训。同时，雇主越来越强调学习本身就是一种技能。
    This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline “Learning and earning”

原文出处：经济学人网站

译者：安东Anton

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