The arrival of hundreds of millions of cheap, diligent Chinese workers in the global economy saw America trade blue collar jobs for low cost t-shirts and toasters.
曾几何时，全球经济中出现的数亿廉价而勤奋的中国工人见证了美国拿国内蓝领就业机会换取廉价T恤和烤面包机的历史。
From 2000, the year before China entered the World Trade Organization, to 2011, the U.S. manufacturing sector shed 5.4 million jobs.
从2000年(这是中国加入世界贸易组织前一年)到2011年，美国制造业丧失了540万个就业岗位。
Demographic changes mean that China's labor force has already hit a plateau in size and will soon start to shrink. Manufacturing wages rose 20.1% in 2011, outstripping improvements in labor productivity. The price of U.S. imports from China has started to rise. That crimps the spending power of U.S. consumers, and fuels inflationary pressure.
人口结构的变化意味着中国劳动力规模已经停止继续扩大，不久将开始萎缩。2011年，中国制造业工资水平上升了20.1%，超过了劳动生产率的增幅。美国进口自中国的商品已经开始涨价。这降低了美国消费者的消费能力，加大了通胀压力。
Rising wages are also eating into margins, reducing opportunities for U.S. investors to tap easy profits. Morgan Stanley analysts estimate Chinese exporters' profit margins have shrunk 20% to 30% since 2004. The real number could be even higher. Net margins for Hon Hai Precision Industry, producer of the iPad, fell to 2.4% in 2011 from 5.5% in 2004.
工资水平上升也侵蚀了利润率，减少了美国投资者轻松赚取利润的机会。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的分析师估计，自2004年以来，中国出口企业的利润率已经萎缩了20%至30%，实际数字可能更高。鸿海精密工业股份有限公司(Hon Hai Precision Industry, 简称：鸿海精密)的净利润率从2004年的5.5%降至2011年的2.4%。鸿海精密负责代工生产iPad。
Compounding the woes of white collar America, millions of cheap and diligent Chinese graduates will be jostling for a position in the global labor market. China is producing 6 million graduates a year, and is expected to have 200 million by 2030 according to estimates from the World Bank.
令美国白领更加痛苦的是，上千万廉价而勤奋的中国大学毕业生将在全球劳动力市场和他们竞争同一个职位。中国每年的大学毕业生数量有600万，据世界银行(World Bank)估计，到2030年中国预计将有2亿大学毕业生。
A massive increase in the global supply of high skilled workers in the years ahead could have the same impact as the surge in low skilled workers more than a decade earlier - denting employment and wage growth in the U.S.
和十多年前低技术工人数量激增所带来的影响类似，未来几年全球高技能工人的供应量大幅增加也将拖累美国的就业率和工资增长速度。
None of this is immediate and not all of it is inevitable. Despite a 46% increase in manufacturing wages in China since 2008, the cost of U.S. imports has only risen 2.6% - reflecting firms' capacity to improve productivity and swallow smaller margins. Language and cultural barriers mean China's professional workers will not put a ding in the global workforce as easily as their factory worker parents did. Rising incomes in China should also boost U.S. exports.
当然，上述影响并不会马上显现，也并非所有的负面影响都是不可避免的。尽管自2008年以来中国制造业工资水平上升了46%，但美国的进口成本仅上升了2.6%，这反映出企业提高生产率、消化利润率降低的能力。语言和文化的障碍意味着和在工厂打工的父辈相比，中国的专业工人在全球劳动力大军中占得一席之地的难度会加大。
Still, such a profound shift in the labor market of the world's most populous country will not leave U.S. workers unaffected. In the first stage of China's development, America's blue collar workers lost their shirt. In the next stage, America's white collar could start to look a little grubby.
但在中国这样一个全球人口最多的国家，其劳动力市场的深刻变化一定会影响到美国工人。在中国发展的第一阶段，美国的蓝领工人失去了他们的衬衫。在中国发展的下一阶段，美国的白领员工看上去可能会有点邋遢。