Summary
10 April 2009
Unemployment in Britain has officially risen to over two million. The figures are not yet as bad as Germany or America but there is concern over the rate that jobs are being lost.
Reporter:
Naomi Grimley in Oxford
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Report
Here at the Mini car plant in Cowley they know all about the frightening speed of Britain's job losses. Recently over 800 agency workers were laid off from here with very little in the way of notice. They're now part of a growing number of jobless which has passed the two million mark for the first time in 12 years.
What is particularly worrying is the way redundancies are happening across a spectrum of careers. There is evidence too that the pain and suffering is being felt especially by younger people.
Politicians are bracing themselves for the summer when many school and university leavers will finish full-time education and start looking for jobs. That is one of the reasons why experts are predicting that Britain could experience over three million unemployed, a situation not seen since the 1980s.
Naomi Grimley, 大象传媒 News, Cowley, Oxford
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Vocabulary
- the frightening speed of Britain's job losses
- how quickly the number of people who become unemployed is rising in Britain
- laid off
- sacked, made redundant, left without a job
- with very little in the way of notice
- at very short notice, with very little advance warning
- passed the two million mark
- exceeded, or become more than two million people
- redundancies
- when employees lose their jobs because their employer no longer needs them
- across a spectrum of careers
- in many sectors of industry and trade, as well as other organisations and job types
- bracing themselves
- preparing (for something unpleasant or difficult)
- predicting
- saying that something will happen
- experience
- here, see/have
