Faced with the rapidly rising costs of employee benefits, companies are scaling back. It's become distressingly clear that employees are increasingly on their own when it comes to retirement savings and health care.

　　Employers don't typically trash (丟棄) an important employee benefit-too much negative press-but they are shifting more of these costs onto workers. who feel it in the form of higher health-care premiums, rising co-payments on drugs and much less certainty about their retirement finances.

　　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-or contemplating making-to their employee-benefits packages. The knife cuts deepest on the most 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 an employee and her family. The employer's response: shift more of that growing burden to workers. As a result, companies have seen their health-care spending rise 29% over the past five years.but employees have seen their outlays-for premiums, co-pays and deductibles-rise 40%.

　　Retiree health care is getting hit hardest-just when the boomer generation needs it most. Of the employers surveyed, 45% have already reduced or eliminated subsidized health-care coverage for future retirees, and an additional 24% are planning to do so or considering it. Of those offering the perk(額外補貼), roughly 25% put a dollar limit on how much they will spend per retiree. "Once the limit is reached, future inflation risk transfers to the retiree," notes Ron Fontanetta. an executive with Towers Perrin.

　　Corporate pensions, the third leg of the proverbial retirement stool (the other two being Social Security and personal savings), are also being eroded as the foundering (下挫的) stock market wreaks havoc on employer pension funds. At the end of 2008. employer-sponsored pension plans were underfunded by more than $400 billion, according to Mercer, a management-consulting firn. The recent stock-market rally has halved that deficit. but it remains a funding sore 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. "Retiree benefits 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 in old-line industries.Detroit’s Big Three automakers, for example, have more than Four rimes as many retirees as active hourly workers.

　　測試題

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

　　2. According to Towers Perrin's survey, which 8spect of employee benefits is the most profoundly 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 because of_____________________.

　　答案詳解

　　1.[shifting more of these costs onto workers]

　　[定位]第2段第1句。

　　解析：原文的trash(丟棄)和題干中的ending表達的是相同的意思，都是說雇主們并未真的停止提供福利，而是將福利成本轉移到員工身上。原文but后的內容即是需要填入的正確答案。

　　2.[Health care.]

　　[定位]第3段末句。

　　解析：根據題干中Towers Perrin 查找到第3段。題干the most profoundly impacted 是對原文cuts deepest的近義改寫。題目問的是具體某方面的削減，答案在后面找，即員工福利削減最大的是醫療保健。

　　3.[the boomer generation]

　　[定位]第5段第1句。

　　解析：原文說在boomer generation 最需要退休醫保的時候，退休醫保被削減最多，即退休醫保的縮減對 the boomer generation 影響很大。

　　4.[corporate pensions]

　　[定位]第6段第1句及第3句。

　　解析：該段第1句提到，股市下跌對企業養老金基金產生極嚴重的破壞。最后一句說，雖然股市有所反彈，但企業還是turning away from this benefit，題干giving up對應原文turning away from，this benefit 指代的是 corporate pensions。

　　5.[the larger number of retirees]

　　[定位]最后一段最后一句。

　　解析：原文說企業起初提供福利的情形和現在不同。原來退休員工很少，但是現在退休員工占多數，可以提煉成the larger number of retirees。

　　參考譯文

　　面對飛速上漲的員工福利成本，許多公司正在縮減他們承擔的比例。在退休儲蓄和醫療保健問題上，雇員越來越需要依靠自己。這一顯而易見的局面令人十分沮喪。

　　[1]雇主通常不是廢除重要的員工福利——因為有太多的負面壓力——但他們在將更多的福利成本轉移到工人身上。工人們從更高的醫療保險費、不斷增加的藥物共付費用，以及退體后的財務狀況越來越不確定等方面都能感覺到這一點。

　　韜睿咨詢公司，一家全球性的人力資源咨詢公司。最近調查了美國數百家公司正在對其員工福利計劃做出或考慮做出的改變，這些公司擁有的員工總數超過了l，300萬。[2]削減最大的是那些最耗錢的福利，而其中最大的一塊通常又是醫療保健。

　　平均起來，一家美國公司每年花費超過14，000多美元向每位職工及其家屬提供醫療保障。雇主們的應對方法是：將這個日益加重的負擔更多地轉交給工人。于是，公司在過去5年里的醫療開支增長了29%，而職工的支出——保險費、共付費用和自付額——增長了40%。

　　[3]退休員工醫療保健被削減最多——就在嬰兒潮一代最需要醫療保健的時候。被調查的雇主中，有45%已經減少或取消了未來退體員工的醫療費用津貼，另外有24%的雇主準備或在考慮這樣做。在支付這類津貼的雇主中，大約有25%為退休者能報銷的費用設置了上限。“一旦達到這個上限，未來通貨膨脹的風險將轉移到退休員工身上，”韜睿咨詢公司高管羅恩·方特尼特如是說。

　　[4]這些養老金是退休人員收入的第三大支柱(另兩個分別為社會保障和個人儲蓄，然而隨著股市下挫給企業養老金基金帶來十分嚴重的破壞。這第三大支柱也遭到了侵蝕。根據美世咨詢公司的數據，在2008年年底，由雇主資助的退體金計劃資金短缺超出4，000億美元。[4]雖然近期股市反彈使赤字減少了一半，但這依然是融資的痛處，同時也是企業逐漸取消養老金的另一個原因。

　　“公司起初提供福利時的情形(和現在)不同”，方特尼特說。“許多公司在其勞工比較年輕化、退休人員比較少的時候開始提供退休人員福利，因此那時負擔退休福利的成本并不是大問題。”[5]現在情形恰好相反，尤其是在傳統行業中。像底特律的三大汽車制造商，其退休員工比在職員工多出四倍。