英语六级听力：世界各国最低工资

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We are looking at issues involving minimum wage. And what we've learned is that in this time of austerity, nothing is sacred including a minimum wage. One of the ways Greece is trying to make up its budget shortfall is to lower the pay floor for those who were just joining the workforce. The Labour Ministry says newcomers will be paid 84% of minimum wage. Greece's minimum monthly pay is 740 euros, that's about $930. The government the move will keep more young people working, mainly those in their 20s.

The Netherlands is home to one of Europe's highest minimum wages, at about $1800 a month. Diana Magnay takes a look at how that's playing out in the current fiscal crunch.


I’m Diana Magnay in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Now in this country there is a minimum wage of around $400 a . And that is an effort by the government to give people on low incomes a decent quality of life. Now here in the Netherlands, they are looking ahead to putting together an austerity package to try and cope with the crisis within the eurozone. But the minimum wage has not entered the debate as an area to be cut. Instead, they are looking at things like pensions and the retirement ages, of course crucial issues in countries where the population is aging.

And just in case you are wandering , Luxembourg has the highest minimum wage at 1683 euros a month, well over US$2000. Charles?

Hi, well, I am not surprised. But obviously austerity, notwithstanding what's going on in Luxembourg, austerity very much the way of the world as far as Europe is concerned. But you do have some different challenges where you’re speaking from in Asia, inflation and so on, how does minimum wage function to those concerns.

Well, generally, policymakers, as you said, in the region, are concerned about the potential for rising prices. So central bankers have started raising interest rates to keep inflation in check. However, the recent call for higher wages in countries from China to Cambodia is complicating efforts by government authorities to counter the risks of overheating.

CNN's Mallika Kapur looks at minimum wage policies in India, and this is a country struggling to rein in a double-digit inflation.

I am Mallika Kapur in Mumbai. India's central government has not set a minimum wage level across the country. It's up to individual state governments to set that level. And so it varies from state to state, and also from sector to sector. Now the central government recommends that nobody should get pay below 100 rupees a day, that's a little over two dollars. But given just how high inflation is in India these days, two dollars doesn't go very far. In this vegetable market, two dollars will get you two kilos of tomatoes or one kilo of peas. Now 90% of India's workforce is made up of the informal sector. That includes people like labourers, street vendors and domestic workers. Together the informal sector contributes to 2/3 of India's GDP. The reality is that many of these people earn less than a dollar a day. And until the central government's recommendation of a minimum wage of 100 rupees a day gets backed by a law, India's wage structure is unlikely to change.