经济衰退时哪些工作不易丢?

Luis Mejia, 42, never finished high school, but once made about $80,000 a year at a construction company, operating a vehicle that loads heavy materials onto trucks. That job evaporated with the real-estate bust. 'I had a lot of experience, so I thought it would be easy to find the same work, but nobody was hiring,' he said.
42岁的路易斯•梅吉亚(Luis Mejia)高中都没有读完，但他以前在一家建筑公司工作时曾经能挣到一年80,000美元左右，工作内容就是操作一个将重物装上卡车的工具。后来，这个工作连同房地产市场的泡沫一起蒸发了。梅吉亚说，“我有非常丰富的经验，所以当初我认为找份同样的工作会比较容易，但是没有公司有这样的岗位招人。”

After substantial reluctance, Mr. Mejia and his wife, Margarita, turned to cleaning houses. 'To be honest, when I started doing this, I didn't like it. I was doing it because I had no choice,' he says.
在极其不情愿地挣扎了一番之后，梅吉亚和妻子玛格丽塔(Margarita)干起了房屋清洁的工作。梅吉亚说，“说实话，开始做这份工作时，我并不喜欢它，做这工作是因为我没有选择。”

Now their business, Margarita's Cleaning Services, cleans 45 to 50 houses a month and has hired its first employee. Rising around 6 a.m. and taking their 16-year-old to school before work, the couple cleans three or four houses a day, six days a week. They charge $80 for a two-bedroom house and $250 for bigger ones. The couple earns about $50,000 a year now, around 60% of Mr. Mejia's previous salary.
如今他们夫妻二人有了自己的小公司──“玛格丽塔清洁服务公司”(Margarita's Cleaning Services)，每个月要打扫45至50套房子，他们还雇佣了自己的第一名员工。他们大概在早晨六点起床，把16岁的孩子送去上学后便开始工作。他们夫妻二人每天要清洁三四套房子，一周工作六天时间。他们对一套两居室房子的收费是80美元，面积更大的则要收取250美元。现在他们一年挣50,000美元左右，大约只有梅吉亚以前收入的60%。

The payrolls of brand-name U.S. corporations trace the same pattern: growing workforces in companies that specialize in personal services of all sorts and a decrease in those that have more routine occupations.
不仅如此，美国知名企业的员工名单也体现出了同样的趋势，专门从事各种类型的个人服务工作的企业的员工人数在增加，而常规行业岗位较多的企业的员工人数则在减少。

Since 2007, Panera Bread Co., a cafe chain, has increased its U.S. workforce by 22,000 jobs, a 50% increase. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. a fast-food outfit, has added 12,000, a 63% increase. The four largest publicly traded home-health agencies have added 22,000 workers, up 84%.
自2007年以来，连锁咖啡店Panera Bread在美国增加了22,000个工作岗位，增幅为50%。快餐店Chipotle Mexican Grill增加了12,000个岗位，增幅达63%。此外，美国最大的四家上市家庭保健机构增聘了22,000名员工，增幅高达84%。

In contrast, auto maker Ford Motor Co.'s North American payrolls declined by 19,000, or 20%; manufacturer General Electric Co.'s U.S. workforce declined by 24,000, or 15%, and health insurer Aetna Inc.'s by 2,200, or 6%.
相比之下，汽车制造商福特(Ford Motor Co.)北美区的员工数量减少了19,000人，减幅达20%。此外，制造行业的通用电气公司(General Electric Co.)的美国员工人数则减少了24,000人，比例达15%，医疗保险商Aetna的这个数字达2,200人，减幅达6%。

Before the recession, when unemployment was low and workers relatively scarce, wages for personal-service workers rose while wages for middle-skill jobs sagged. Mr. Autor and colleague David Dorn found a 16% increase in inflation-adjusted average hourly wages between 1980 and 2005 for these service workers and a 30% increase for the professionals, managers and upper-end finance workers. That contrasts with a 6% increase for machine operators and assemblers and a 4% decline for production and craft workers.
在经济发生衰退之前，失业率较低而且从业人员数量相对比较少，私人服务业员工的工资有所上升，而中等技能岗位的薪资则在下降。奥托尔及其同事戴维•多恩(David Dorn)发现，在1980年至2005年期间，这些服务行业的员工的平均时薪经通胀调整后上升了16%，专业人士、管理人员和高端金融业从业人员的薪资上升了30%，而机器操作员、装配工的薪资水平仅上升了6%，而从事生产和手工活的工人的工资更是降低了4%。

But the subsequent recession and sluggish recovery produced a glut of workers for these relatively low-skill, personal-service jobs; wages have been depressed as a consequence, Mr. Autor says. And incomes of barbers and some other personal-care workers were squeezed during the recession and immediately after the recession when many consumers cut back spending on easy-to-skip services such as dining out or delayed getting their hair cut.
然而，奥托尔还指出，后来发生的经济衰退和疲软的经济复苏导致这些技能相对较低的个人服务业的员工供大于求，其薪资水平也因此受到抑制。理发师和其他一些个人护理业员工的收入在衰退期间也受到挤压，在经济衰退结束不久之后，许多消费者削减了可以忽略不做或少做的服务方面的开支，例如少去餐馆吃饭或者是延长每次理发的间隔时间。

Regina Gilbert, 46, a mother of two, once made $48,000 doing clerical work in New York City's Administration for Children's Services, but that job disappeared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when the city turned to outside contractors to save money. She relied on unemployment benefits as long as she could and then performed odd jobs for years.
里吉娜•吉尔伯特(Regina Gilbert)今年46岁，是两个孩子的妈妈。她曾经在纽约市的儿童服务管理局(Administration for Children's Services)做文书工作，年薪为48,000美元。但是，在2001年“9•11”恐怖袭击事件发生之后，纽约市便将这些服务转给外部承包商以节省资金，吉尔伯特的这个岗位也因此消失。她依靠领取尽可能长时间的失业救济金生活，后来干了几年的零工。

Now she's working again - checking boarding passes at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and making $7.25 an hour without health benefits. Commuting from Brooklyn takes her two hours a day, and the transportation costs take a significant slice out of her take-home pay.
现在她已重新开始工作──在纽约的肯尼迪国际机场(John F. Kennedy International Airport)检查登机牌，工资是7.25美元一小时，而且没有医疗保险。每天从布鲁克林乘车去上班需要两个小时，交通费占了她税后收入的很大一部分。

'It is fulfilling,' she says, 'but every day I look at the money I make and the agony that I'm going through. I'm standing on my feet all day.'
她说，“这份工作让人觉得充实，但是看看我每天挣的这点钱和我受的苦吧。我（上班时）一整天都要站着。”