Coronavirus: Dealing with mass unemployment

6 Minute English

语言学习

2020-09-24

6 分钟
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  • This is a download from BBC Learning English.

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  • Hello, this is Six Minute English from BBC Learning English.

  • I'm Neil.

  • And I'm Sam.

  • You and I are lucky, Sam, because we can do our jobs remotely, working from home.

  • There are some downsides, though, like not being able to meet up with friends or share ideas with and going out for lunch.

  • But the coronavirus pandemic has caused millions of people to lose their job and force thousands more out of work temporarily, with no idea if their job will still be there when they return.

  • For those daily workers without savings to pay the rent and feed their families, it's been especially stressful.

  • Each job loss is a potential personal tragedy.

  • In this program, we'll be assessing the post-COVID job landscape and asking whether a radical new approach is needed to prevent global mass unemployment.

  • We'll be asking whether one of the world's smallest and richest countries, Denmark,

  • might hold the answer.

  • And of course, we'll be learning some new vocabulary as well.

  • But first, it's time for our quiz question.

  • One man who knows a lot about jobs is Brad Smith, president of Microsoft,

  • a company employing over 150,000 workers.

  • He's made gloomy predictions about the number of people out of work.

  • But how many people does he predict will be left unemployed this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic?

  • Is it A, one quarter of a billion people,