Listening English lesson

Junior Achievement Marks 90 Years of Business Education

March 10th, 2010 at 09:30am Under Economy Report

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

This year, Junior Achievement marks its ninetieth anniversary of educating young people about business and economics. The nonprofit organization is the largest of its kind. Jack Kosakowsky is executive vice president.

JACK KOSAKOWSKY: “We are the oldest business and economic education organization in the world.  We’re now serving nine-point-two million young people around the globe in one hundred twenty-three different countries.”

Programs begin in elementary school and continue through middle and high school. The education is based on the ideas of market-based economics and entrepreneurship.

Shakara Walker shows a product her group of students is marketing at JA offices in Atlanta, Georgia

Junior Achievement began in nineteen nineteen in Springfield, Massachusetts. Two business leaders, Horace Moses and Theodore Vail, joined with Senator Murray Crane of Massachusetts to start the group.

For more than fifty years, Junior Achievement programs operated through clubs that met after school. But in nineteen seventy-five, JA also began to teach business skills during the school day.

Volunteers from the community teach about businesses, how they are organized, and how products are made and sold. The volunteers also teach about the American and world economies and about industry and trade.

The Junior Achievement Company Program teaches young people how entrepreneurship works. They learn about business by operating their own companies.

Students develop a product and sell shares in their company. They use the money to buy the materials they need to make their product, which they then sell. Finally, they return the profits to the people who bought shares in the company.

Chellsey Cruz joined a student-operated company two years ago. The Higher Grounds Cafe in West Hills, California, sells high quality coffee.

She says her experience has given her valuable training that will help her for a lifetime.

CHELLSEY CRUZ: “It taught me to be dedicated, and that if you want to be successful, you have to put in a lot of time and effort. You really have to work at it.”

Junior Achievement says three hundred eighty-five thousand volunteers support its programs around the world. In the United States alone, there are nearly twenty-three thousand places that hold Junior Achievement events.

Junior Achievement Incorporated and Junior Achievement International combined their operations in two thousand four. They formed Junior Achievement Worldwide. Its headquarters are in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter with additional reporting by Faiza Elmasry. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs can be found at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can follow us on Twitter at VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

By admin Add comment

Half of US Jobs Now Held by Women

March 4th, 2010 at 09:24am Under Economy Report

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Women are on their way to holding more than half of all American jobs. The latest government report shows that their share of nonfarm jobs nearly reached fifty percent in September. Not only have more and more women entered the labor market over the years, but the recession has been harder on men. In October the unemployment rate for men was almost eleven percent, compared to eight percent for women.

Former eBay chief Meg Whitman, right, a Republican candidate for California governor, talks to a supporter at a business women’s conference

Industries that traditionally use lots of men have suffered deep cuts. For example, manufacturing and building lost more jobs last month. But health care and temporary employment services have had job growth. Both of those industries employ high percentages of women.

Thirty years ago, women earned sixty-two cents for every dollar that men earned. Now, for those who usually work full time, women earn about eighty percent of what men earn. And women hold fifty-one percent of good-paying management and professional jobs.

Yet a study released Thursday said men still hold about nine out of every ten top positions at the four hundred largest companies in California. The results have remained largely unchanged in five years of studies from the University of California, Davis.

Also, a new research paper in the journal Sex Roles looks at the experiences of women who are the main earners in their family. Rebecca Meisenbach at the University of Missouri in Columbia interviewed fifteen women. She found they all valued their independence and many enjoyed having the power of control, though not all wanted it.

But they also felt pressure, worry and guilt. Partly that was because of cultural expectations that working women will still take care of the children. Also, men who are not the main earners may feel threatened.

The job market continues to suffer the effects of last year’s financial crash. Now, a judgment has been reached in the first case involving charges of criminal wrongdoing on Wall Street.

Last week, the government lost its case against two managers at Bear Stearns, the first investment bank to fail last year. A jury found Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin not guilty of lying to investors.

The hedge funds they supervised lost their value in two thousand seven. But jurors said there was no clear evidence that they meant to mislead investors.

The Justice Department continues to investigate other companies.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I’m Steve Ember.

By admin Add comment