日度归档:2020年3月22日

2020-3-22 English Reading.

 
Vincent Diaz, 38, has lived his whole life in Flatbush, Brooklyn, but he can’t remember his city ever being this quiet. “Even when you see people, the energy is different,” he says. Diaz lost his bartending job after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered bars and restaurants to switch to takeout and delivery only. The overall mood in his neighborhood is somber amid what’s essentially a shelter-in-place order. “Nobody is smiling and happy, even on sunny days,” he says. “There’s always this sense of dread hanging in the air.”
bartending 调酒
takeout and delivery only. 只能外卖送货
 

As companies shutter and the economy grinds to a halt, Diaz is just one of the many thousands of Americans who have been, or are in danger of being, laid off amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aside from the hospitality industry, massive layoffs are expected in travel, manufacturing, and more. Some experts are predicting that the unemployment rate which had been functionally nil before this crisis  could climb as high as 20%, an unprecedented figure in the modern era.

hospitality industry酒店业

But even as the nation’s automakers stop building cars, airlines park most of their fleets and stadiums shut their doors, other companies are staffing up in a big way.

Facing a crushing surge in demand, companies that provide “essential” services like grocery stores and delivery firms are urgently seeking temporary help.

grocery stores and delivery firms杂货店和送货公司

Amazon is adding 100,000 new full-time and part-time positions to keep up with a surge in online shopping.

Walmart has announced it will hire 150,000 new associates. Kroger, a grocer, is hiring 10,000 new employees nationwide, while Safeway is bringing on more than 2,000.

Fittingly, some of the job postings read more like calls to war than hiring notices.

“We are currently experiencing a monumental surge in our sales & foot traffic,” read a March 13 letter from Costco management seeking temporary worker referrals from staff.

monumental 极其巨大的、纪念碑的
foot traffic,人流量
temporary worker referrals 临时工介绍

But many of the jobs being created amid the pandemic involve working at the front lines of the crisis.

For those who grab hold of one of these economic lifelines, it could mean putting themselves and their loved ones at risk of contracting the potentially deadly illness. “It would be a calculated risk,” says Diaz, who’s trying to find a job before he burns through his four months worth of savings.

As he sees it, we’ll all need people willing to expose themselves to danger to keep the rest of us going. “We need each other more than ever nowadays, and I think there’s going to have to be somebody, a lot of somebodies, who are going to be willing to go out there and engage.”