Still Desperately Seeking Workers


美国企业的招工需求依然旺盛，最近银行业的混乱可能不会给就业市场带来太大影响。


从医院到酒店等雇主都在努力争取足够的人员配置。

美国科技公司的裁员潮并没有对就业市场造成多大冲击。最近银行业的混乱可能也不会给就业市场带来太大影响。 6park.com
All those tech layoffs didn’t do much to dent the job market. The recent roiling of banks might not either. 6park.com
   
尽管美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve，简称：美联储)在过去一年里大幅加息，房地产市场崩溃，并且谷歌(Google Inc.)母公司Alphabet (GOOG)、Meta Platforms (META)和亚马逊公司(Amazon.com Inc., AMZN)等公司进行了几轮引人注目的裁员，但美国的就业市场仍然保持了非常强劲的增长势头。从医院到酒店等行业难以获得充足人手之际，相较于新增就业人数势头，失业人数情况不值一提。 6park.com
U.S. job growth has remained remarkably strong, despite the Federal Reserve’s sharply increasing interest rates over the past year, the crumbling of housing, and several rounds of headline-grabbing layoffs from companies such as Google-parent Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com. With businesses ranging from hospitals to hotels struggling to get to adequate staffing levels, the number of people losing jobs has paled in comparison to those who have been getting them. 6park.com
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这并不是说整体经济中的失业人数一直很高。美国劳工部(Labor Department) 周四公布，在截至上周六的一周内，经季节性因素调整后的首次申请失业救济人数为19.8万人，比之前一周的19.1万人略有增加，但仍然处于非常低的水平。在以就业市场强劲为特征的2019年，首次申请失业救济的人数平均约为22万人。人们在失去工作后申请失业救济可能需要时间，但自从硅谷银行(Silicon Valley Bank)的问题于3月9日首次引发美国股市震荡以来，失业人数并没有明显增加。 6park.com
Not that the number of people getting laid off across the economy has been high. On Thursday the Labor Department reported there were a seasonally adjusted 198,000 new unemployment claims filed in the week ended Saturday, up a bit from the previous week’s 191,000, but still a very low figure. In 2019—a year characterized by job-market strength—claims averaged about 220,000. It can take time for people to file for unemployment after losing their jobs, but in the time since trouble at Silicon Valley Bank first sent convulsions through the stock market on March 9, there has been no notable pickup in job losses.



此外，雇主的招聘需求似乎也没有减弱。截至上周五，招聘网站Indeed公布的美国整体职位空缺指数实际上略高于硅谷银行问题暴发前的水平。尽管该指数从2021年底触及的高点有所下降，但仍比疫情之前高出了三分之一。 6park.com
Moreover, demand from employers aiming to hire doesn’t appear to have slackened. An index of overall U.S. job openings from job-listing site Indeed was, as of last Friday, actually a bit above where it was before Silicon Valley Bank’s troubles hit. Though down from the highs it reached in late 2021, it is still a third higher than before the pandemic. 6park.com
   
同样，杜克大学(Duke University)的商学院Fuqua School of Business和亚特兰大和里士满联邦储备银行在2月底至3月初对首席财务官们进行的一项调查显示，17%的受访者认为劳动力质量和供应是他们最大关切，这超过了包括通货膨胀、货币政策和经济健康状况在内的其他任何因素。另有4.8%的受访者将劳动力成本作为他们的主要关切。 6park.com
By a similar token, in a survey of chief financial officers conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Richmond in late February through early March, 17% of respondents counted labor quality and availability as their most pressing concern—more than any other factor, including inflation, monetary policy and the health of the economy. Another 4.8% put labor costs as their main concern. 6park.com
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这项调查的学术主管、杜克大学经济学家John Graham说，很多企业从一开始就无法雇用到他们想要的人数。“即使经济走势趋于平缓，他们仍在努力填补这些空缺。” 6park.com
“A lot of firms never were able to hire as many as they wanted in the first place,” says Duke economist John Graham, who is the survey’s academic director. “Even if the economy flattens, they are still trying to fill up those empty slots.” 6park.com
  
当然，银行业的麻烦最终会在多大程度上减少对员工的需求并不确定。即使出现更多存款挤兑的风险已经得到控制，但区域银行和社区银行可能会在一段时间内对其贷款更加谨慎，同时它们也可能会经受更多的监管审查。尽管如此，高盛(Goldman Sachs)经济学家们指出，其实在硅谷银行崩溃之前，贷款标准就已经因为对经济衰退的担忧而收紧了，因此任何进一步的收紧可能只代表信贷条件收紧的程度加深。他们还指出，由于有待填补的空缺职位很多，即使由小银行贷款支持的扩张减少，许多人还是会找到工作。 6park.com
The degree to which the banking sectors’ troubles might eventually reduce demand for workers is, of course, uncertain. Even if the danger of more deposit runs has been contained, regional and community banks will likely be more careful with their lending for some time, as well as experiencing more regulatory scrutiny. That said, Goldman Sachs economists point out that lending standards had already tightened due to recession concerns even before SVB collapsed, so any further tightening might only represent an incremental change in credit conditions. They further point out that because there are so many unfilled job openings, even if there are fewer expansions financed by small-bank lending, many people will find employment nonetheless. 6park.com
  
银行业的问题可能会为就业市场降温，使得有职位空缺的企业更容易雇用到员工，并减轻缓解一些薪资增长压力。但这些问题不会冻结就业市场。 6park.com
Banking troubles might lower the temperature on the job market, making it easier for companies with openings to hire workers, and taking some pressure off wage growth. But they won’t freeze it. 6park.com