双语新闻：专家表示，生产率的提高可能是美国经济强劲的原因
Worker shortages in the United States have led some companies to invest in machines to do some of the work they cannot find people to do. The companies have also been training workers to use new technology so they can produce more with less.
美国的工人短缺导致一些公司投资于机器来做一些他们找不到人做的工作。这些公司也一直在培训工人使用新技术，这样他们就能以更少的成本生产更多的产品。
The result has been an unexpected increase in productivity, a measure of economic performance. Productivity compares two sets of data: outputs and inputs. Outputs are the goods and services produced, while the inputs are what is needed to create those goods and services.
其结果是生产率出人意料地提高，而生产率是衡量经济表现的一个指标。生产率比较两组数据:产出和投入。产出是生产的商品和服务，而投入是创造这些商品和服务所需的东西。
Productivity increase
生产力的提高
The productivity increase represents a change from the years before the COVID-19 pandemic years. Yearly productivity growth averaged around 1.5 percent, business advisory company RSM estimates.
生产率的提高与2019冠状病毒病大流行前的年份有所不同。据商业咨询公司RSM估计，年生产率增长平均在1.5%左右。
Things changed when the economy moved out of the 2020 recession. Businesses had difficulties bringing back the many workers they had lost.
当经济走出2020年的衰退时，情况发生了变化。企业很难把失去的许多工人重新招回来。
The resulting worker shortage sent pay higher. Inflation increased for a number of reasons. One was that factories and ports had problems meeting rising product orders while shipping slowed. Shortages of parts were also reported.
由此导致的工人短缺导致工资上涨。通货膨胀加剧的原因有很多。其一是工厂和港口难以满足不断增加的产品订单，同时航运放缓。零件短缺也有报道。
Many companies turned to automation. Investment in equipment and in research and development and other forms of intellectual property grew. The Associated Press reports that the efficiency effects began to arrive almost a year ago.
许多公司转向自动化。设备、研发和其他形式的知识产权投资增加。美联社报道说，效率效应大约一年前就开始显现。
The U.S. government's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports on productivity. The BLS released its most recent productivity numbers on February 1. The bureau said: "Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023."
美国政府的劳工统计局(BLS)报告了生产率。劳工统计局于2月1日发布了最新的生产率数据。统计局表示:“非农业企业部门的劳动生产率在2023年第四季度增长了3.2%。”
One company's story
一家公司的故事
Batesville Tool & Die is a company based in the Midwestern state of Indiana. Trying to keep up with customer demand, Batesville Tool & Die began looking for 70 people to hire last year. It was not easy. Getting factory workers to move to a small community of 7,300 people in the Indiana countryside was difficult.
贝茨维尔工具和模具是一家总部设在中西部的印第安纳州的公司。为了跟上客户的需求，贝茨维尔模具公司去年开始招聘70名员工。这并不容易。让工厂工人搬到印第安纳州农村一个只有7300人的小社区是很困难的。
Job seekers were rare there.
在那里找工作的人很少。
"You could count on one hand how many people in the town were unemployed," said Jody Fledderman, the company chief.
“镇上有多少人失业，你一只手就能数得过来，”该公司首席执行官乔迪·弗莱德曼说。
Batesville Tool & Die filled just 40 of its job openings.
Batesville Tool & Die公司只招到了40个职位。
But then the company invested in machines that could work like human workers and in vision systems, which helped its robots "see" what they were doing.
但随后，该公司投资了可以像人类工人一样工作的机器，以及帮助机器人“看到”自己在做什么的视觉系统。
Productivity: not well understood
生产力:没有被很好地理解
Austan Goolsbee is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He has compared increasing productivity to "magic...for the economy...You can have faster income increases, faster wage growth, faster GDP without generating inflation.''
Austan Goolsbee是芝加哥联邦储备银行行长。他把提高生产力比作“魔术……对经济而言……你可以在不引发通货膨胀的情况下实现更快的收入增长、更快的工资增长和更快的GDP增长。”
Joe Brusuelas is chief economist at RSM. He said, "The last time we saw anything like this was the late 1990s."
Joe Brusuelas是RSM的首席经济学家。他说:“我们上一次看到这种情况是在上世纪90年代末。”
At that time, Brusuelas said, a productivity increase — an early result from the sudden use of laptops, cellphones, and the internet — helped keep borrowing rates low. Inflation remained under control even as the economy and the job market were strong.
当时，Brusuelas说，生产力的提高——这是突然使用笔记本电脑、手机和互联网的早期结果——帮助借贷利率保持在低位。尽管经济和就业市场强劲，但通胀仍在控制之中。
This time, the U.S. central bank has increased the interest rates it controls 11 times starting in March 2022. That has played a part in easing inflation from a 40-year high of 9.1 percent to around 3.1 percent.
这一次，美联储从2022年3月开始已经11次上调利率。这在将通胀率从9.1%的40年高点降至3.1%左右方面发挥了一定作用。
"I would have said it's not possible,'' said Sal Guatieri who is an economist at BMO Capital Markets. "But that's exactly what happened.''
“我会说这是不可能的，”蒙特利尔银行资本市场的经济学家萨尔·瓜蒂里说。“但事实就是这样。”
A year ago, many economists warned that a recession was very likely. Jerome Powell leads the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. Powell warned in 2022 that beating inflation would result in "some pain" in the form of widespread job losses and unemployment.
一年前，许多经济学家警告说，经济衰退很有可能发生。杰罗姆·鲍威尔领导着美国联邦储备银行。鲍威尔在2022年警告说，战胜通货膨胀将导致“一些痛苦”，其形式是广泛的失业和失业。
Last month, Powell said something different. With unemployment near a 50-year low, Powell told reporters, "We've had a very strong labor market, and we've had inflation coming down."
上个月，鲍威尔说了一些不同的话。随着失业率接近50年来的最低水平，鲍威尔告诉记者，“我们的劳动力市场非常强劲，通货膨胀也在下降。”
He did warn that the central bank wants to see further progress in slowing inflation. But the Fed is so optimistic that inflation is heading toward its two percent goal that it has not raised rates since July. Some experts expect the central bank to cut its interest rates several times this year.
他警告说，央行希望看到在减缓通胀方面取得进一步进展。但美联储过于乐观，认为通胀正朝着2%的目标前进，因此自7月以来没有加息。一些专家预计，央行今年将多次降息。
At a news conference this month, Powell was asked whether he believed higher productivity helps explain why the economy has kept growing even while inflation has fallen.
在本月的新闻发布会上，鲍威尔被问及他是否认为更高的生产率有助于解释为什么即使通货膨胀率下降，经济仍保持增长。
"That's one way to look at it — yeah," Powell replied.
“这是一种看待问题的方式——是的，”鲍威尔回答。
美国的工人短缺导致一些公司投资于机器来做一些他们找不到人做的工作。这些公司也一直在培训工人使用新技术，这样他们就能以更少的成本生产更多的产品。
The result has been an unexpected increase in productivity, a measure of economic performance. Productivity compares two sets of data: outputs and inputs. Outputs are the goods and services produced, while the inputs are what is needed to create those goods and services.
其结果是生产率出人意料地提高，而生产率是衡量经济表现的一个指标。生产率比较两组数据:产出和投入。产出是生产的商品和服务，而投入是创造这些商品和服务所需的东西。
Productivity increase
生产力的提高
The productivity increase represents a change from the years before the COVID-19 pandemic years. Yearly productivity growth averaged around 1.5 percent, business advisory company RSM estimates.
生产率的提高与2019冠状病毒病大流行前的年份有所不同。据商业咨询公司RSM估计，年生产率增长平均在1.5%左右。
Things changed when the economy moved out of the 2020 recession. Businesses had difficulties bringing back the many workers they had lost.
当经济走出2020年的衰退时，情况发生了变化。企业很难把失去的许多工人重新招回来。
The resulting worker shortage sent pay higher. Inflation increased for a number of reasons. One was that factories and ports had problems meeting rising product orders while shipping slowed. Shortages of parts were also reported.
由此导致的工人短缺导致工资上涨。通货膨胀加剧的原因有很多。其一是工厂和港口难以满足不断增加的产品订单，同时航运放缓。零件短缺也有报道。
Many companies turned to automation. Investment in equipment and in research and development and other forms of intellectual property grew. The Associated Press reports that the efficiency effects began to arrive almost a year ago.
许多公司转向自动化。设备、研发和其他形式的知识产权投资增加。美联社报道说，效率效应大约一年前就开始显现。
The U.S. government's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports on productivity. The BLS released its most recent productivity numbers on February 1. The bureau said: "Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023."
美国政府的劳工统计局(BLS)报告了生产率。劳工统计局于2月1日发布了最新的生产率数据。统计局表示:“非农业企业部门的劳动生产率在2023年第四季度增长了3.2%。”
One company's story
一家公司的故事
Batesville Tool & Die is a company based in the Midwestern state of Indiana. Trying to keep up with customer demand, Batesville Tool & Die began looking for 70 people to hire last year. It was not easy. Getting factory workers to move to a small community of 7,300 people in the Indiana countryside was difficult.
贝茨维尔工具和模具是一家总部设在中西部的印第安纳州的公司。为了跟上客户的需求，贝茨维尔模具公司去年开始招聘70名员工。这并不容易。让工厂工人搬到印第安纳州农村一个只有7300人的小社区是很困难的。
Job seekers were rare there.
在那里找工作的人很少。
"You could count on one hand how many people in the town were unemployed," said Jody Fledderman, the company chief.
“镇上有多少人失业，你一只手就能数得过来，”该公司首席执行官乔迪·弗莱德曼说。
Batesville Tool & Die filled just 40 of its job openings.
Batesville Tool & Die公司只招到了40个职位。
But then the company invested in machines that could work like human workers and in vision systems, which helped its robots "see" what they were doing.
但随后，该公司投资了可以像人类工人一样工作的机器，以及帮助机器人“看到”自己在做什么的视觉系统。
Productivity: not well understood
生产力:没有被很好地理解
Austan Goolsbee is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He has compared increasing productivity to "magic...for the economy...You can have faster income increases, faster wage growth, faster GDP without generating inflation.''
Austan Goolsbee是芝加哥联邦储备银行行长。他把提高生产力比作“魔术……对经济而言……你可以在不引发通货膨胀的情况下实现更快的收入增长、更快的工资增长和更快的GDP增长。”
Joe Brusuelas is chief economist at RSM. He said, "The last time we saw anything like this was the late 1990s."
Joe Brusuelas是RSM的首席经济学家。他说:“我们上一次看到这种情况是在上世纪90年代末。”
At that time, Brusuelas said, a productivity increase — an early result from the sudden use of laptops, cellphones, and the internet — helped keep borrowing rates low. Inflation remained under control even as the economy and the job market were strong.
当时，Brusuelas说，生产力的提高——这是突然使用笔记本电脑、手机和互联网的早期结果——帮助借贷利率保持在低位。尽管经济和就业市场强劲，但通胀仍在控制之中。
This time, the U.S. central bank has increased the interest rates it controls 11 times starting in March 2022. That has played a part in easing inflation from a 40-year high of 9.1 percent to around 3.1 percent.
这一次，美联储从2022年3月开始已经11次上调利率。这在将通胀率从9.1%的40年高点降至3.1%左右方面发挥了一定作用。
"I would have said it's not possible,'' said Sal Guatieri who is an economist at BMO Capital Markets. "But that's exactly what happened.''
“我会说这是不可能的，”蒙特利尔银行资本市场的经济学家萨尔·瓜蒂里说。“但事实就是这样。”
A year ago, many economists warned that a recession was very likely. Jerome Powell leads the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. Powell warned in 2022 that beating inflation would result in "some pain" in the form of widespread job losses and unemployment.
一年前，许多经济学家警告说，经济衰退很有可能发生。杰罗姆·鲍威尔领导着美国联邦储备银行。鲍威尔在2022年警告说，战胜通货膨胀将导致“一些痛苦”，其形式是广泛的失业和失业。
Last month, Powell said something different. With unemployment near a 50-year low, Powell told reporters, "We've had a very strong labor market, and we've had inflation coming down."
上个月，鲍威尔说了一些不同的话。随着失业率接近50年来的最低水平，鲍威尔告诉记者，“我们的劳动力市场非常强劲，通货膨胀也在下降。”
He did warn that the central bank wants to see further progress in slowing inflation. But the Fed is so optimistic that inflation is heading toward its two percent goal that it has not raised rates since July. Some experts expect the central bank to cut its interest rates several times this year.
他警告说，央行希望看到在减缓通胀方面取得进一步进展。但美联储过于乐观，认为通胀正朝着2%的目标前进，因此自7月以来没有加息。一些专家预计，央行今年将多次降息。
At a news conference this month, Powell was asked whether he believed higher productivity helps explain why the economy has kept growing even while inflation has fallen.
在本月的新闻发布会上，鲍威尔被问及他是否认为更高的生产率有助于解释为什么即使通货膨胀率下降，经济仍保持增长。
"That's one way to look at it — yeah," Powell replied.
“这是一种看待问题的方式——是的，”鲍威尔回答。
