原文:
Passages
Passage One
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 packages are faced out too early.
The report warns the picture on wages is likely to get worse this year, despite indications of economic rebond. 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, this strongly suggests 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," he said. "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, CostaRica, South Africa and Germany.
International Labor Organization economists say some nations have come up with polices 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 wages ubsidies to compensate for lost pay due to the shorter hours.
Questions9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Q9. What is the International Labor Organization report mainly about?
Q10.Accroding to an International Labor Organization specialist, how will employersfeel if there are more people looking for jobs?
Q11.What does the speak mean by "the work sharing scheme"?
Recording2
As U.S.banks recovered with the help of American government and the American tax payers, president Obama held meetings with top bank executives, telling the mit’s time to return the favor. “The way I see it are banks now having a greater obligation to the goal of a wide recovery,” he said. But the president may be giving the financial sector too much credit. “It was in a free fall, and it was a very scary period.” Economist Martin Neil Baily said. After the failure of Lehman Brothers, many of the world’s largest banks feared the worst as the collapse of the housing bubble exposed in investments in risky loans.
Although he says the worst is just over, Bailey says the banking crisis is not. Morethan 130 US banks failed in 2009. He predicts high failure rates for smaller, regional banks in 2010 as commercial real estate loans come due.
"So there may actually be a worsening of credit availability to small and medium sized