Areas of concern

颇受关注的领域

Parts of America may already be facing recession

美国部分领域可能已经面临经济衰退

Slowdowns in housing construction and manufacturing are ominous                                                                                

住房建设和制造业放缓是不祥之兆

词汇

Ominous/预兆的；不吉利的

                                                                                

Aug 29th 2019 | WASHINGTON, DC

IT CAN BE hard to know when isolated announcements become something more. Since last November General Motors has cut several thousand factory jobs at plants across the Midwest. In early August US Steel said it would lay off 200 workers in Michigan. Sales of camper vans dropped by 23% in the 12 months ending in July, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of workers in Indiana, where many are made. Factory workers are not the only ones on edge. Lowes, a retailer, recently said it would slash thousands of jobs. Halliburton, an oil-services firm, is cutting too.

很难知道孤立的公告何时会变得更有意义。自去年11月以来，通用汽车公司在中西部地区的工厂裁员数千人。8月初，美国钢铁公司(US Steel)表示，将在密歇根州裁员200人。截至7月份的12个月里，露营车的销量下降了23%，威胁到了印第安纳州数千名工人的生计。并非只有工厂工人处于紧张状态。零售商Lowes（劳氏公司）最近表示，将裁员数千人。石油服务公司哈里伯顿也在裁员。

 

In any given month, even at the height of a boom, more than 5m Americans leave a job; nearly 2m are laid off. Most of the time, however, overall employment grows. But not all the time. America may or may not be lurching towards a recession now. For the time being employment and output continue to grow. But in the corners of the economy where trouble often rears its head earliest, there are disconcerting portents.

在任何一个月，即使是在经济繁荣的鼎盛时期，也有超过500万美国人失业;近200万人被解雇。然而，大多数时候，总体就业在增长。但并非一直如此。美国现在可能会陷入衰退，也可能不会。目前，就业和产出继续增长。但在经济中麻烦往往最先出现的领域，却出现了令人不安的征兆。

词汇

Lurch/东倒西歪地行驶

 

Recessions are synchronised declines in economic activity; weak demand typically shows up in nearly every sector in an economy. But some parts of the economic landscape are more cyclical than others—that is, they have bigger booms and deeper slumps. Certain bits tend to crash in the earliest stages of a downturn whereas others weaken later. Every downturn is different. Those caused by a spike in oil prices, for example, progress through an economy in a different way from those precipitated by financial crises or tax increases.

衰退是经济活动同步下降;需求疲软通常出现在一个经济体的几乎所有领域。但是，经济格局的某些部分比其他部分更具周期性——也就是说，它们有更广的繁荣和更深层次的衰退。在经济衰退的最初阶段，某些部分往往会崩溃，而其他部分则会在随后衰弱。每次衰退都是不同的。例如，由石油价格飙升引起的经济衰退进程与由金融危机或增税引发的经济衰退进程方式不同。

词汇

Precipitated/沉淀的；析出的

 

But most recessions follow a cycle of tightening monetary policy, during which the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in order to prevent inflation from running too high. The first rumblings of downturns usually appear in areas in which growth depends heavily on the availability of affordable credit. Housing is often among the first sectors to wobble; as rates on mortgages go up, this chokes off new housing demand. In a paper published in 2007 Edward Leamer, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, declared simply that “housing is the business cycle”. Recent history agrees.

但大多数衰退都遵循一个收紧货币政策的周期，在此期间，美联储上调利率，以防止通胀过高。经济增长在很大程度上依赖于可负担得起的信贷供应的领域，往往会出现经济衰退的最初迹象。房地产往往是最先出现动荡的行业之一;随着抵押贷款利率上升，这抑制了新的住房需求。加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California, Los Angeles)经济学家爱德华•利默(Edward Leamer)在2007年发表的一篇论文中简单地宣称，“房地产代表类商业周期”。近年来的经济状况证实了这一点。

词汇

Wobble/  摇晃；摇摆；游移不定

 

Residential investment in America began to drop two years before the start of the Great Recession, and employment in the industry peaked in April 2006. Conditions in housing markets were rather exceptional at the time. But in the downturn before that, typically associated with the implosion of the dotcom boom, housing also sounded an early alarm. Employment in residential construction peaked precisely a year before the start of the downturn. And now? Residential investment has been shrinking since the beginning of 2018. Employment in the housing sector has fallen since March.

在大衰退开始前两年，美国的住宅投资就开始下降，而该行业的就业在2006年4月达到顶峰。当时的房地产市场状况相当特殊。但在此之前的低迷时期(通常与互联网热潮的内爆有关)，房地产市场也发出了早期警报。住宅建筑业的就业在经济衰退开始前一年达到顶峰。现在呢?自2018年初以来，住宅投资一直在萎缩。自3月份以来，房地产行业的就业人数一直在下降。

词汇

Implosion/向内破裂

Dotcom/因特网公司

 

Things may yet turn around. The Fed reduced its main interest rate in July and could cut again in September. If buyers respond quickly it could give builders and the economy a lift. But housing is not the only warning sign.

情况可能还会好转。美联储在7月份降低了主要利率，并可能在9月份再次降息。如果买家反应迅速，可能会提振建筑商和经济。但住房并不是唯一的警告信号。

 

Manufacturing activity also tends to falter before other parts of an economy. When interest-rate increases push up the value of the dollar, exporters’ competitiveness in foreign markets suffers. Durable goods like cars or appliances pile up when credit is costlier.

制造业活动也往往比其他经济领域先衰退。当利率上升推高美元价值时，出口商在国外市场的竞争力就会受到影响。当信贷成本上升时，汽车或家电等耐用品就会堆积如山。

 

In the previous cycle, employment in durable-goods manufacturing peaked in June 2006, about a year and a half before the onset of recession. This year has been another brutal one for industry. An index of purchasing managers’ activity registered a decline in August. Since last December manufacturing output has fallen by 1.5%. Rather ominously, hours worked—considered to be a leading economic indicator—are declining. Some of this is linked to President Donald Trump’s trade wars, which have hurt manufacturers worldwide. But not all. Domestic vehicle sales have fallen in recent months, suggesting that Americans are getting more nervous about making big purchases.

在上一个经济周期中，耐用品制造业的雇佣人数在2006年6月达到顶峰，比经济衰退开始的时间早了一年半左右。对于整个行业来说，今年又是残酷的一年。8月份采购经理人指数有所下降。自去年12月以来，制造业产出下降了1.5%。相当不祥的是，被认为是主要经济指标的工作时间正在减少。其中一些与唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)总统的贸|易|战有关，这场贸易战伤害了全球制造商。但并不是所有。近几个月来，美国国内汽车销量下降，这表明美国人对大额消费越来越有所顾虑。

 

In some sectors, technological change makes it difficult to interpret the data. Soaring employment in oil industries used to be a bad sign for the American economy, since hiring in the sector tended to accompany consumer-crushing spikes in oil prices. But America now produces almost as much oil as it consumes, thanks to the shale-oil revolution. A recent fall in employment and hours in oil extraction may be a bad omen rather than a good one. By contrast, a fall in retail employment was once unambiguously bad news. But retail work in America has been in decline for two and a half years; ongoing shrinkage may not signal recession, but the structural economic shift towards e-commerce.

在某些领域，技术的变化使数据难以解释。石油行业的就业人数激增曾是美国经济的一个坏兆头，因为该行业的就业往往伴随着石油价格的大幅上涨。但由于页岩油革命，美国现在的石油产量几乎与消费量相当。最近石油开采行业的就业率和工作时间的下降可能是一个坏兆头，而不是一个好兆头。相比之下，零售业就业率的下降曾是一个毫无疑问的坏消息。但是美国的零售业工作已经下降了两年半;持续的萎缩可能并不意味着经济衰退，而是结构性的经济转向电子商务。

词汇

Unambiguously/不含糊地；明白地；单意义地

 

Other signals are less ambiguous. In recent decades employment in “temporary help services”—mostly staffing agencies—has reliably peaked about a year before the onset of recession. The turnaround in temporary employment in 2009 was among the “green shoots” taken to augur a long-awaited labour-market recovery. Since December it has fallen by 30,000 jobs.

其他信号则不那么模糊。近几十年来，“临时帮助服务”(主要是人力资源机构)的就业率在经济衰退开始前一年达到了顶峰。2009年临时就业的好转是期待已久的劳动力市场复苏的“苗头”之一。自去年12月以来，它已经减少了3万个工作岗位。

Even if America avoids a recession, the present slowdown may prove politically consequential. Weakness in some sectors, like retail, is spread fairly evenly across the country. But in others, like construction or, especially, manufacturing, the nagging pain of the moment is more concentrated (see map). Indiana lost over 100,000 manufacturing jobs in the last downturn, equal to nearly 4% of statewide employment. It is now among a modest but growing number of states experiencing falling employment: a list which also includes Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

即使美国避免了经济衰退，目前的经济放缓也可能带来政治后果。零售等一些行业的疲软在全国范围内分布得相当均匀。但在其他行业，比如建筑业，尤其是制造业，当下的痛苦更加集中(见地图)。印第安纳州在上次经济衰退中失去了超过10万个制造业岗位，相当于全州就业人数的近4%。目前，美国有少数几个州的就业率在下降，但这个数字还在增加:俄亥俄州、宾夕法尼亚州和密歇根州也在下降之列。

词汇

Nagging/唠叨的；挑剔的；使人不得安宁的

 

Those four states, part of America’s manufacturing heartland, suffered both early and deeply during the Great Recession. In 2016 all delivered their electoral-college votes to Mr Trump, handing him the presidency. The president’s trade war might have been expected to play well in such places. But if the economic woe continues, voters’ faith in Mr Trump is anything but assured. Choked states might well turn Democrat-blue.

这四个州是美国制造业中心的一部分，在经济大萧条时期遭受了早期和严重的打击。2016年，所有人都把选举人票投给了特朗普，让他当上了总统。总统的贸|易|战本来可能在这些地方打得很好。但如果经济困境持续下去，选民们对特朗普的信心绝不是板上钉钉的事。发展受困的州也许会（将希望）转向民主党派。

词汇

Woe/困难，灾难