Passage 1
Finland’s finance minister recently made a bold promise to Europe’s 16m unemployed. His country’s presidency of the EU, which starts on July 1st, will be almost unique: it will be marked by no new job-creation schemes.
Europe’s unemployment, the central bankers declare, is nothing do with macroeconomic policy: it is solely a “structural” problem. This is nonsense. Some of Europe’s unemployment is cyclical, meaning that it could be cut by faster economic growth without sparking inflation. For example, Germany’s unemployment rate is 10.6%. The IMF estimates its structural rate at 8.9%. Faster growth could reduce the gap. Even so the bulk of Europe’s unemployment is structural. So is the European Central Bank right to say that macroeconomic policy cannot affect it?
Well actually, no. Europe’s high structural unemployment cannot be blamed on labor-market rigidities(僵化) alone. Its labor markets were as just as ossified 20 years ago, yet joblessness was then far lower. However, there is a danger that, when labor markets are gummed up, a cyclical rise in unemployment can turn into a structural one——making it impervious(不受影响的) to an economic upturn. For example, strict employment-protection laws make it hard for workers who lose their jobs to find new ones. The longer they stayed unemployed, the more their skill rust and the less employers are likely to hire them. Unable to compete effectively for jobs, they no longer help retrain pay demands: They have become “structurally” unemployed.
45.The employment-protection laws make it easier for workers to find new jobs.
A、True
B、False
【正确答案】：B
【名师解析】:根据文章内容，芬兰的财政部长承诺，在芬兰担任欧盟轮值主席国期间，不会推出新的就业创造计划。文章指出，欧洲的高失业率不仅仅是结构性问题，还与宏观经济政策有关。文章中提到，严格的就业保护法使得失业者难以找到新工作，随着失业时间的延长，他们的技能会退化，雇主雇佣他们的可能性也会降低。这表明，就业保护法实际上并没有使工人更容易找到新工作，反而可能加剧了结构性失业的问题。因此，选项A "True" 是错误的，正确答案是选项B "False"。
