Word: short
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...celebrated in a different way in the Floating Mosque currently under construction off the coast of Dubai. Designed by Dutch firm Waterstudio.NL, the arresting building, which is due to be finished by 2011, resembles a futuristic submarine rising from the Persian Gulf with minarets so short and slender they could be periscopes. Built of floating modules of concrete and foam, it will be cooled by seawater pumped through the roof, walls and floors...
...hours, and the Hsinchu Science Park Administration predicts that only around 25% of hi-tech park professionals will be on forced leave in April. Back in London, John Philpott, the public-policy director of a lobby group called the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, sees the rise of short-work programs and pay cuts in industry as a natural reaction to the crisis. In the case of accountants KPMG, he says, "if you have a highly skilled workforce that you don't want to lose, it can make a lot of sense." But the idea of governments getting involved...
...keep on workers even though there's little or no work for them to do. Both have recently extended their schemes. In Germany, the government now subsidizes companies and idled workers for a full 18 months, up from six months, and the number signing up for the so-called short-work programs is soaring. In February, 724,000 workers were registered, more than double the number in January and 20 times the number a year ago. Most of the nation's auto makers including BMW and Porsche have adopted short-work programs in some of their factories. In Japan...
Torres and other labor experts say it's an open question whether these schemes make much of a difference. In the short term, they may well slow the rise in unemployment. But if the current crisis continues, as many economists are predicting, at least for this year and probably into 2010, even pay cuts, work-sharing schemes and shorter working hours won't be enough to safeguard jobs. "The real issue is can it be sustained?" Torres asks...
...chief economist Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel argues forcefully that governments should do more to retrain workers and overhaul their labor-market policies to ensure that once recovery comes, new jobs are created in sufficient numbers to swiftly bring the jobless rate back down again. But ask him about the German short-work measures, and he's skeptical. "They can't stop rising unemployment," he says, "they just delay it." Indeed, in its latest economic forecast released March 31, the OECD expects unemployment in Germany to rise from its current 8.6% to 11.6% by the end of 2010 - higher than many...