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.
43.Faster economic growth will ease the pressure of unemployment in the EU.
A、True
B、False
【正确答案】：A
【名师解析】:根据文章内容，芬兰财政部长承诺，在芬兰担任欧盟轮值主席国期间，将不会有新的就业创造计划。文章中提到，欧洲的失业率问题不仅仅是结构性的，也有周期性的成分。周期性失业可以通过加快经济增长来减少，而不会触发通货膨胀。例如，德国的失业率是10.6%，而国际货币基金组织估计其结构性失业率为8.9%，这意味着通过更快的增长可以减少两者之间的差距。因此，文章支持更快的经济增长可以减轻欧盟的失业压力的观点。所以，题目的答案是选项A，即"True"。
