Word: meager
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...outsourcing. Filipinos are not famed for their brilliance at telemarketing, which requires pushiness, but they are prized when it comes to the gentler art of customer service. The nation's other outsourcing edge is more basic: it has a large population of English speakers who will work for relatively meager salaries. A top agent in Manila might be paid $2.65 an hour, perhaps a quarter of what someone in a call center in the U.S. might earn. As a result, it can be a highly profitable business...
...several weeks to reach Litang for a riotous few days of dancing, drinking, singing and horse racing. Most live in dreadfully inhospitable regions, cut off by heavy snow for up to eight months of the year; subsequently, this is the great highlight of the social calendar, and many meager incomes are blown on stunning silks, furs and jewels, just for the event. The Litang festival and others like it were banned during the Cultural Revolution and for many years afterward because of their tribal origins, but they've made a comeback in recent years with official blessing. As well...
Industrial development in Sichuan came next, spurred partly by the fact that most towns did not have enough farmland to go around. The 133 villagers in Longzhao, for example, realized they could not profitably divide the town's meager l½ acres. Looking for alternatives, several women banded together to mend clothing. Today that circle has grown into a 110-woman collective housed in a new, two-story concrete building. The clatter of 60 gleaming sewing machines plays syncopated rhythm to the strains of Chinese music from the stereo and the gossipy talk of the workers. Liao Zhureng, 30, who manages...
FRANCE. Chevalier predicts a year of improvement based on a policy consensus between the Socialist government and the conservative opposition, which is currently expected to win parliamentary elections scheduled for March 16. Growth should accelerate slightly from last year's meager 1.4%, to 2.1%, because of what Chevalier called "a gift from abroad"--lower oil prices and a cheaper dollar. Inflation in France will dip from 4.9% to 4% this year, while unemployment will edge...
...Middle Linebacker Mike Singletary, the team's conscience. He is now the hub of the "46" defense (retired Kamikaze Doug Plank's old jersey number, a monument to mayhem). However, during Singletary 's rookie season in 1981, Ryan summarily yanked him in favor of an experienced hand of meager skills. After a few minutes on the sidelines, the chastened player murmured to the distracted coach, "I know what I did wrong now. Should I go back in?" Ryan looked at him as if unable to recall who he was. "What? No, no, son. We're going...