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| Business Words in the News
Friday 28 September 2001
Vocabulary from the business news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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Consumer confidence falls
Summary: Consumers in some of the world's biggest economies are getting gloomier in the aftermath of the attacks on the USA. A series of surveys shows that many people think the economic outlook will now get worse. This report from Ian Pollock:
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| | The News | |
| | | People were becoming more gloomy anyway because the world economy has been slowing down for months. But in the USA, the publishers of a regular poll said consumers had been stopped in their tracks by this month's attacks on the World Trade Centre. That's important because Americans have been regarded as the world's spenders of last resort.
In the UK two monthly consumer surveys have shown people getting more worried about their circumstances, though one was noticeably worse than the other.
And in France the leading survey of business confidence has fallen to its lowest level for 5 years as orders shrink.
In Japan during August - before the attacks - sales in the shops and stores fell for the fifth month in a row. They are now nearly 4% lower than a year ago, with the economy heading towards recession and unemployment reaching record levels.
Only in Italy has a survey found people, so far, relatively immune to the global gloom.
IAN POLLOCK, BBC, LONDON
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| | The Words
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| | | a regular poll
a series of surveys where periods of time between one survey and the next are roughly equal
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| | | stopped in their tracks
if you are stopped in your tracks, you suddenly stop doing something because you are very surprised, shocked or frightened
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| | | the world's spenders of last resort
people who continue to spend money even when spending in other countries has slowed down
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| | | consumer surveys
if you carry out a consumer survey, you try to find out detailed information about a lot of people who buy goods or services by asking them the same questions
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| | | business confidence
feeling certain about the future of your business
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| | | orders shrink
requests for goods and services become smaller and fewer
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| | | heading towards recession
coming to a slowdown
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| | | record levels
if you say that unemployment has reached record levels, you mean that the number of people without a job is higher than ever before
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| | | immune to the global gloom
not affected by the poor state of economy in many countries across the world
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