What does "one-off" (Para 4, Line 2) possibly mean in the text?
A.One person per task.
B.Once and for all.
C.Tasks will be done only once, not repeatedly.
D.Several persons for one task, but one will have to leave several days later.
A.意识是物质的反映
B.物质世界是客观的
C.事物是普遍联系的
D.世界是变化发展的
A.世界是变化发展的
B.物质世界是客观的
C.意识是物质的反映
D.事物是普遍联系的
A.每个人注意的范围会有所不同
B.注意的广度会随着呈现事物的增加而有所增加
C.一次性呈现过多刺激物容易引起注意力的分散
D.注意对象的排列组合规律会直接影响到注意的广度
France has a poor record when it comes to keeping older people in the workforce. The retirement age is 60, not 65 as in most developed countries. In 2005 only 37.8% of people aged 55-64 had jobs, versus 56.8% in Britain and 44.9% in Germany. The main reason is that in the 1980s, when there was high unemployment, the government promoted early retirement. That entrenched the idea that older workers were less productive, says Caroline Young, Experconnect's founder.
Now companies are worried about losing their most skilled workers, especially as the baby boom generation nears retirement. Areva, a nuclear-power group, recently launched a scheme to address the needs of older employees, and plans to use about 100 retired people a year through Experconnect. Because nuclear power was unpopular for decades, Areva stopped training engineers, so that much of its expertise lies with its oldest staff. Now it is taking much more interest in them. "We have to bring about a revolution in opinion," says Jean Cassingena, its human-resources strategist.
Unlike other recruitment agencies, Experconnect keeps its workers on its own books, so they can carry on drawing their pensions. They tend to work part-time on one-off projects. Engineers and people with high levels of technical skill are most in demand in France, says Ms Young, as younger people increasingly choose to go into fields such as marketing. Thales, a defence and aerospace firm, is using a former radar expert, for instance, and Louis Berger France, an engineering firm, often uses retired engineers to manage big infrastructure projects.
Softer industries also make use of Experconnect. Danone, a food firm, hires people for one-off management roles. "Older people have seen it all and they are level-headed," says Thomas Kunz, its head of beverages. The beauty industry is short of toxicologists to determine whether new lotions are safe, and one firm has just taken on a 75-year-old. Two famous French luxury-goods companies plan to use retired workers in their handbag divisions. One wants to safeguard its knowledge of fine leathers and sewing; the other wants to apply expertise from the aerospace industry to make new kinds of materials for handbags.
Despite an impressive handful of high-profile clients, Experconnect has found it difficult to convince French companies that older workers can be valuable. It has 2,700 retired people on its books, and has so far placed just 50 of them on "missions". Old prejudices, as they say, die hard.
What is possibly the most important reason why the company want to send an employee of similar experience to the Indian company?
A.The Indian company preferred experienced people to novices.
B.The youthful corporate culture left no old people in the company.
C.To show respect to the Indian company.
D.Employee of similar experience with the patriarch would facilitate the negotiation of the acquisition.
Yet Japan's animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can't be replaced, he's a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn't 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over."
The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as £10,000.
Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world's most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets.' But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks.
Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it's only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."
For the time being, Japan's animation industry is
A.in a state of inactivity.
B.somewhat promising.
C.going from bad to worse.
D.seemingly glorious.