英语六级阅读理解练习附详解:员工福利

　　Towers Perrin. a global human-resources-consulting firm, recently surveyed hundreds of U.S.companies representing more than 13 million employees on changer they are making-orcontemplating making-to their employee-benefits packages. The knife cuts deepest on themost expensive benefits, with the biggest often being healty care.

　　It costs the average American company more than $14,000 per year to provide coverage to anemployee and her family. The employer's response: shift more of that growing burden toworkers. As a result, companies have seen their health-care spending rise 29% over the pastfive years.but employees have seen their outlays-for premiums, co-pays and deductibles-rise40%.

　　Retiree health care is getting hit hardest-just when the boomer generation needs it most. Ofthe employerssurveyed, 45% have already reduced or eliminated subsidized health-carecoverage for future retirees, and an additional 24% are planning to do so or considering it. Ofthose offering the perk(额外补贴), roughly 25% put a dollar limit on how much they will spendper retiree. "Once the limit is reached, future inflation risk transfers to the retiree," notes RonFontanetta. an executive with Towers Perrin.

　　Corporate pensions, the third leg of the proverbial retirement stool (the other two being SocialSecurity and personal savings), are also being eroded as the foundering (下挫的) stock marketwreaks havoc on employer pension funds. At the end of 2008. employer-sponsored pensionplans were underfunded by more than $400billion, according to Mercer, a management-consulting firn. The recent stock-market rally has halved that deficit. but it remains a fundingsore spot and is one more reason that companies are turning away from this benefit.

　　"Companies initiated many of these benefits in a different time," says Fontanetta. "Retireebenefits started being offered when many companies had a young workforce with few retirees.so it was not really a cost they had to contend with.” Today it's the reverse, particularly inold-line industries.Detroit’s Big Three automakers, for example, have more than Four rimes asmany retirees as active hourly workers.

　　面对飞速上涨的员工福利成本，许多公司正在缩减他们承担的比例。在退休储蓄和医疗保健问题上，雇员越来越需要依靠自己。这一显而易见的局面令人十分沮丧。

　　[1]雇主通常不是废除重要的员工福利——因为有太多的负面压力——但他们在将更多的福利成本转移到工人身上。工人们从更高的医疗保险费、不断增加的药物共付费用，以及退体后的财务状况越来越不确定等方面都能感觉到这一点。

　　韬睿咨询公司，一家全球性的人力资源咨询公司。最近调查了美国数百家公司正在对其员工福利计划做出或考虑做出的改变，这些公司拥有的员工总数超过了l，300万。[2]削减最大的是那些最耗钱的福利，而其中最大的一块通常又是医疗保健。

　　平均起来，一家美国公司每年花费超过14，000多美元向每位职工及其家属提供医疗保障。雇主们的应对方法是：将这个日益加重的负担更多地转交给工人。于是，公司在过去5年里的医疗开支增长了29%，而职工的支出——保险费、共付费用和自付额——增长了40%。

　　[3]退休员工医疗保健被削减最多——就在婴儿潮一代最需要医疗保健的时候。被调查的雇主中，有45%已经减少或取消了未来退体员工的医疗费用津贴，另外有24%的雇主准备或在考虑这样做。在支付这类津贴的雇主中，大约有25%为退休者能报销的费用设置了上限。“一旦达到这个上限，未来通货膨胀的风险将转移到退休员工身上，”韬睿咨询公司高管罗恩·方特尼特如是说。

　　[4]这些养老金是退休人员收入的第三大支柱(另两个分别为社会保障和个人储蓄，然而随着股市下挫给企业养老金基金带来十分严重的破坏。这第三大支柱也遭到了侵蚀。根据美世咨询公司的数据，在2008年年底，由雇主资助的退体金计划资金短缺超出4，000亿美元。[4]虽然近期股市反弹使赤字减少了一半，但这依然是融资的痛处，同时也是企业逐渐取消养老金的另一个原因。

　　“公司起初提供福利时的情形(和现在)不同”，方特尼特说。“许多公司在其劳工比较年轻化、退休人员比较少的时候开始提供退休人员福利，因此那时负担退休福利的成本并不是大问题。”[5]现在情形恰好相反，尤其是在传统行业中。像底特律的三大汽车制造商，其退休员工比在职员工多出四倍。

　　1. Instead of ending important employee benefits. employers are_____________.

　　2. According to Towers Perrin's survey, which 8spect of employee benefits is the mostprofoundly impacted?

　　3. The scaling down of retiree health greatly affected_________________.

　　4. Because of the stock market slump, companies are giving up_________________.

　　5. The last paragraph implies that companies cut back on retiree benefits becauseof_____________________.

　　1.[shifting more of these costs onto workers]