Some unfortunate mismatches in young people’s job preferences and prospects 

年轻人在工作偏好和就业前景的错位令人惋惜

 

The world of work is changing. Are people ready for the new job outlook? A survey of 15-year-olds across 41countries by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, found that teenagers may have unrealistic expectations about the kind of work that will be available. 

职场正在发生变化。人们准备好迎接新的工作前景了吗？主要由富裕国家组成的国际经合组织对41个国家的15岁青少年进行了一项调查。

 

Four of the five most popular choices were traditional professional roles: doctors, teachers, business managers and lawyers. Teenagers clustered¹ around the most popular jobs, with the top ten being chosen by 47% of boys and 53% of girls. Those shares were significantly higher than when the survey was conducted back in 2000. 

在五个最受欢迎的选择中，有四个是传统的专业社会角色：医生、教师、企业经理和律师。青少年都选择了最热门的工作，前10个最受欢迎工作分别由47%的男孩和53%的女孩选择。这样的比例明显高于2000年进行调查时的水平。

 

The rationale for this selection² was partly down to wishful thinking on the part of those surveyed (designers, actors and musical performers were three of the top 15 jobs). Youth must be allowed a bit of hope. When Bartleby was a teenager, his ambitions were to play cricket³ for England and become prime minister; neither ambition was achieved (a lucky escape for the country on both counts). 

这种选择的理由在一定程度上可以归结为受访者的一厢情愿(前15个最受欢迎工作中有3个是设计师、演员和音乐表演者)。必须给年轻人一点希望。巴托比十几岁的时候，抱负是为英格兰打板球，以及成为英国首相；这两个目标都没有实现(英国在这两方面都“幸免于难”)。

 

Furthermore, teenagers can hardly be expected to have an in-depth knowledge of the minutiae⁴ of labour-market trends. They will have encountered doctors and teachers in their daily lives. Other popular professions, such as lawyers and police officers, will be familiar from films and social media. But many people end up in jobs they would not have heard of in their school years. You settle for what is available. 

此外，很难期望青少年对劳动力市场趋势的细枝末节有深入的了解。他们在日常生活中可以遇到医生和老师。其他受欢迎的职业，如律师和警察，在电影和社交媒体中也会很常见。但许多人最终从事了他们在学生时代从未听说过的工作。勉强接受能做的工作。 

 

 

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