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.
44.Structural rigidities actually do not lead to Europe’s high unemployment.
A、True
B、False
【正确答案】：B
【名师解析】:根据文章内容，芬兰财政部长对欧洲1600万失业者做出了大胆的承诺，但文章指出，欧洲的失业问题不仅仅是结构性的，而是部分周期性的。文章明确指出，欧洲的高结构性失业不能完全归咎于劳动市场的僵化。20年前，欧洲的劳动市场同样僵化，但失业率却远低于现在。此外，文章还提到，当劳动市场出现问题时，周期性的失业可能会转变为结构性的失业，这使得失业者更难找到工作，技能逐渐退化，最终导致他们成为结构性失业者。因此，题目中的说法"Structural rigidities actually do not lead to Europe’s high unemployment."是错误的，答案为B.False。
