10 Business
10 Business June 1 2023 | World and Press ‘It’s just not worth it’ FULL-TIME WORK Britain has a shrinking economy and a worker shortage – so why aren’t part-time workers increasing their hours? By Jedidajah Otte 1 TOUGHER benefit rules have boosted employment in the UK but have also trapped workers in dead-end jobs and weakened incentives to move from part- to full-time work, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). As Britain is expected to be the only major industrialised country to see its economy shrink this year, amid rising interest rates and higher taxes, the government is frantically trying to find ways to boost economic growth. 2 With the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, having launched an inquiry into why hundreds of thousands of people have left the workforce recently, and the Treasury keen to get more people into full-time work, the question of why more Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt shortly before presenting his new spring budget to Parliament in March. | Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images people aren’t increasing their hours amid a persistent shortage of workers has once more moved centre stage. 3 More than eight million people – a quarter of the UK workforce – are in part-time work now, the latest official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. 4 Influential Tory backbenchers are putting pressure on the chancellor to introduce a range of measures to help make childcare more affordable so parents can get back to work. In a keynote speech at Bloomberg last month, Hunt urged early retirees and those struggling to find a new job to rejoin the workforce. “We need you, and we will look at the conditions necessary to make it worth your while,” he said. 5 But for more than a decade now, due to a range of Conservative policies, families working full-time across the income spectrum have been finding themselves earning less money than if they worked part-time. 6 William, 58, a single father from Bedfordshire, is one of several people who told the ‘Guardian’ that they would like to work more but are financially better off for reducing their hours. He works 11 hours a week as a community care worker, visiting elderly clients in their own homes. “I’ve reduced my hours because I’m receiving universal credit. If I work over a certain number of hours or earn over £334 a month, my award is reduced. This means that I don’t get paid for some of the hours worked in real terms. My job requires that I use my car, and although I receive a mileage allowance, this gets added to my take-home pay, and again my UC award is reduced, so effectively I don’t receive the money I lay out for fuel.” 7 William has calculated that he would have to nearly triple his hours to 32 a week to be better off by £100 a month. “Believe me, I’d love to work more hours, but it’s just not worth it.” He expects that he will have to quit care work and find a different job when new rules requiring some universal credit claimants to work more hours come into effect. “If this affects me, I’ll be forced to leave the care profession and work in a shop or factory instead, without fuel costs. It’s those kinds of things that prevent people from staying in the care sector and other fields of work.” … © 2023 Guardian News and Media Ltd 0 – 3 BENEFITSozialleistung — dead-end job (fig) Job ohne Aufstiegschancen — incentive Anreiz — Institute for Fiscal Studies brit. Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitut — amid angesichts — interest rates Zinsen — frantically verzweifelt — chancellor brit. Finanzminister(in) — inquiry Untersuchung — workforce Erwerbsbevölkerung; h.: Arbeitsmarkt — Treasury Finanzministerium — persistent anhaltend — to move centre stage (fig) in den Mittelpunkt rücken 4 – 5 influential einflussreich — backbencher Hinterbänkler(in) — keynote speech Grundsatzrede — to urge s.o. jdn. auffordern — early retiree Frührentner(in) — to be worth one’s while (fig) s. lohnen 6 – 7 to be financially better off (fig) finanziell bessergestellt sein — community care worker Pflegekraft — universal credit (UC) (UK) Bündelung staatl. Leistungen — award Leistung — in real terms effektiv — mileage allowance Kilometerpauschale — take-home pay Nettolohn — to lay out (coll) ausgeben — to triple verdreifachen — claimant Anspruchsberechtigte(r); h.: Bezieher(in) — to come into effect in Kraft treten Nurse shortage named ‘global health emergency’ NURSES By Hunter Boyce 1 A TOTAL13 million nurses will need to be replaced globally within the coming years, according to a March 2023 International Council of Nurses report. With the global nursing shortage as high as 30.6 million in 2019, nurses have found themselves in a profound staffing crisis. 2 “Three years into the pandemic, there are several key policy responses that are required to support the nurse workforce and therefore enable health system rebuild,” the “Recover to Rebuild: Investing in the Nursing Workforce for Health System Effectiveness” report stated. “This includes investment in redeploying resources to other parts of the health system to enable the backlog of non-COVID-19 care to be dealt with. | Photo: Etactics Inc/ Unsplash 3 “The underlying issue, which is central to any effective policy response and targeted investment, is to recognise (sic) that for many working nurses, this is not a short term, one-off ‘acute’ episode or some obscure or distant phenomenon – it is pervasive and personal. It has been a relentless, intense, and a continuing drain on nurses’ energy, morale, and physical and mental health.” 4 The consequences of the pressures being added to the shoulders of today’s nurses could be dire for the world’s health care systems. “This is not only putting severe pressure on the ability of many health systems to deliver current services to their populations but risks seriously undermining efforts to rebuild health services and deliver on universal health coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” the report said. “The evidence indicates that the current state of the nursing workforce should be considered as a global health emergency.” 5 The report largely lays the cause of the staffing shortage at the feet of rising rates of nursing burnout. “During recovery and rebuild, every working nurse deserves consideration,” the report said. “To avoid many individual nurses reaching breaking point, there is a need to give proper attention to the impact of their rebuild decisions on individual nurses and the nurse workforce. If policy makers focus only at the system level, and ignore the impact on nurses, then nurse retention and longer-term supply will worsen.” … © 2023 The Atlanta Journal- Constitution. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 0 – 2 PROFOUND tiefgreifend — staffing crisis Personalkrise; s.w.u. staffing shortage Personalmangel — nurse workforce Pflegekräfte (w. Arbeitskräfte) — effectiveness Leistungsfähigkeit; s.w.u. effective wirksam — to redeploy verlagern — backlog Rückstand; Nachholbedarf 3 – 4 targeted gezielt — one-off einmalig — obscure undurchschaubar — pervasive allgegenwärtig — relentless unaufhörlich — intense intensiv; h.: kräftezehrend — drain Belastung — dire fatal — severe stark — current services aktuelles Angebot an Diensten — to undermine schwächen — universal health coverage Gesundheitsfürsorge für alle — Sustainable Development Goals Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung 5 to lay the cause at the feet of (fig) zurückführen auf — rate(s) of Anteil an — recovery Erholung — consideration Rücksichtnahme — policy maker polit. Entscheider(in) — nurse retention Bindung von Pflegekräften
World and Press | June 1 2023 Business 11 A tiny town was dying, but Reba McEntire came to the rescue Atoka LOCAL ECONOMY The country music star is trying to revive her childhood home in Oklahoma. By Priya Krishna in Atoka, Okla. 1 YEAR AFTER year, eight million vehicles drove through this sleepy town just off U.S. Highway 75, which stretches from Texas to Canada. Almost none of them stopped. Atoka had fallen on hard times: Residents had moved away, and downtown buildings were decaying. Carol Ervin, its economic development director, began to plot how the city might lure even a small fraction of those drive-by travelers to visit. 2 In the past two months, half a million guests have come to this southeastern Oklahoma community of 3,000. The reason can be summed up in four letters: Reba. 3 Reba McEntire, the country music star, grew up in Atoka County, and in January, she made good on a pivotal investment here. In a once-dilapidated former Masonic temple, she opened a restaurant, Reba’s Place – a 50–50 partnership with the Choctaw Nation, whose reservation includes Atoka. Upstairs is a gift shop selling Reba shot glasses and her clothing line for Dillard’s. Front and center is a concert stage, where McEntire headlined the grand opening with a performance of her greatest hits. 4 In coming years, if all goes according to plan, Atoka will get an airport, a small water park, an amphitheater, and boutique hotels. Several manufacturing and green energy companies are already setting up headquarters here. 5 No one was more skeptical than McEntire when Ervin and her team broached the idea of a restaurant as a means of reigniting the local economy. “I thought it was a pipe dream,” the singer Reba McEntire outside the restaurant Reba’s Place in Atoka, Okla. | Photo: Choctaw Nation via The New York Times said over the phone from her home in Nashville as she prepared to kick off her 2023 nationwide tour. Yet “you have got to dream big to make it big.” Call it a convenient convergence: a music superstar, a well-resourced tribal nation, a heavily trafficked highway, and an ambitious local government. “I put my money in on them,” McEntire said, “and they made things happen that I never thought could have happened.” 6 The project is not so farfetched in Oklahoma, which has a number of other celebrityfronted businesses. In Pawhuska, where the Osage Nation is headquartered, the Pioneer Woman Mercantile, a restaurant opened seven years ago by Food Network star Ree Drummond, draws about 6,000 guests a day. Country singers Blake Shelton and Toby Keith own bars within a two-hour drive of Atoka. But McEntire, 67, is arguably a bigger attraction than the others, with a 47-year career and 24 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. She has starred in films, Broadway musicals, and several TV series, including her own hit sitcom, ‘Reba.’ 7 On a Saturday afternoon this month, that star power was The cooks at Reba’s Place, who make well above the federal tipped minimum wage of .13. Right: Dresses from Reba McEntire’s most famous performances. | Photos: Zerb Mellish/The New York Times on display in downtown Atoka. Crowds of McEntire fans – many of them dressed in glittery tops and tasseled jackets to mimic her signature style – lined up outside a stolid three-story brick building whose only trace of glitz was a tall, red electric sign reading “Reba’s Place.” The wait time for a table was four hours. 8 Inside was a shrine to the singer. Under a soaring ceiling, diners packed into booths made from old church pews and gazed at posters showcasing McEntire’s albums, movies, and shows, which have traded on her friendly, just-plain-folks image. “Reba is about faith; she is about family; she is about culture,” said Gary Batton, the chief of the Choctaw Nation, the third-largest tribe in the United States. He knew McEntire from her performances in Choctaw casinos and jumped at the chance to partner with her again. 9 Diners lucky enough to snag a table dug into slabs of chickenfried steak slathered in a pleasantly sweet gravy, and pinto beans served with a towering wedge of cornbread – Southern foods that reflect McEntire’s life and career. They ogled the bedazzled red dress the singer wore on her 1995 tour, one of several outfits on display. Onstage, a local musician, Wyatt Justice, crooned country songs next to a wall-size American flag. “I saw the big sign and then kind of slowed down,” said Donita Clay, who had driven about 90 miles from Broken Bow, Oklahoma. “I am a Reba fan. Who isn’t?” 10 Down the street, Boggy Bottom Antiques & Collectibles was filled with customers browsing “Dolly/Reba 2024” T-shirts while they waited for a table. Tracy Jones, a co-owner, said sales had at least doubled in the last two months. At the Vault, a wine bar across the street from Reba’s Place, Saturday sales had quadrupled, said the owner, Janny Copeland. “We are getting a Starbucks,” she said. “I don’t care what anybody says, we wouldn’t get a Starbucks here if Reba’s wasn’t coming here.” 11 Atoka wasn’t always a small town. In the 20th century, it was home to a booming coal-mining industry and a stop along the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway. In the 1970s, furniture retailer Ethan Allen and the Wrangler jeans company opened factories in Atoka but closed them in 2006. The city lost almost 600 jobs. Last October, according to census data, nearly one in five Atoka County residents lived in poverty. … © 2023 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 0 – 2 TO STRETCHs. erstrecken — to fall on hard times schwere Zeiten durchleben — to decay verfallen — economic development director Beauftragte(r) für Wirtschaftsentwicklung — to plot planen — to lure anlocken — fraction Bruchteil — drive-by travelers Menschen auf der Durchreise 3 – 4 county (AE) Landkreis — pivotal von zentraler Bedeutung — once-dilapidated vormals baufällig — Masonic temple Tempel der Freimaurer — reservation Reservat — shot glass Schnapsglas — front and center (fig) im Vordergrund — to headline als Hauptact auftreten — manufacturing company Produktionsunternehmen 5 – 6 to broach zur Sprache bringen — to reignite neu entfachen; h.: wiederbeleben — pipe dream (fig) Luftschloss — convergence Zus.treffen — well-resourced gut ausgestattet — heavily trafficked viel befahren — far-fetched abwegig — celebrity-fronted (fig) mit e-m Promi als Galionsfigur — arguably wohl — to star mitwirken 7 – 8 glittery Glitzer- — tasselled jacket Fransenjacke — to mimic nachahmen — signature charakteristisch — stolid wuchtig — shrine Schrein — soaring h.: hoch — to pack s. drängen — booth Nische — church pew Kirchenbank — to trade on s.th. von etw. profitieren 9 – 11 to snag ergattern — to dig into s.th. (fig) s. auf etw. stürzen — slab dicke Scheibe — slathered dick überzogen — pinto bean Pintobohne — wedge Stück — to ogle beäugen — bedazzled beeindruckend — to croon schnulzen — collectibles Sammlerstücke — to quadruple s. vervierfachen — furniture retailer Möbeleinzelhändler — census data Volkszählungsdaten
