The trends in economy (Unit 29)

Hello! My name is Frank. I work in sales for Bayer, the German chemicals company. I help to develop sales for the north European part of our business. We’ve had many changes in the last few years and my work has increased a lot. But it’s very interesting and I enjoy it.

Last year was a very lucky year for our company. We increased our sales and, more important, our market share went up a little, so we reached our target. The most important thing in business is to reach the target. But I have to say that competition in my business area is very strong now. You can see that with prices. Though some of our product prices decreased a little last year, at the moment it is rather difficult because of political problems in the world. We should strengthen the economy in Germany because prices have risen a lot. For example, petrol prices and typical supermarket goods are very high.

Last year the turnover of our company increased but now it went down by 2 million ?. As a fact, inflation rose by 2 % so far this year. Last year taxes and bank interest rates fell by 0,5 %, but now they have already increased a lot.A lot of factories were closed, people lost their jobs, so unemployment went up. It is a real problem, because it's difficult to find work and I think it will be a long time before we see unemployment go down.

1. Translate from Russian into English:

pазвивать, химическая компания, наслаждаться, счастливый, достигать цели, сильный, цены, бензин, высокий, оборот, инфляция, налоги, завод, безработица.

2. Translate from English into Russian:

to work in sales, to increase, to decrease, market share, to go up, to go down, competition, to strengthen the economy, to rise, bank interest rate, to fall by.

3. Answer the questions:

1) Where does Frank work?

2) What does he do exactly?

3) Was the company lucky last year and why?

4) What changes have taken place in the company this year? What was the main reason?

5) What changes have taken place in the German economy?

6) What were the consequences of these changes?

WHAT DO YOU THINK? What are the trends in economy in your country?

How do the trends in economy influence simple people’s life?

LEXICAL REVISION EXERCISES.

Обзорные лексические упражнения.

Dictations.

Learn the words for a dictation (from Russian into English, units 1-15).

I'm part of, I'm responsible for, to meet people, to discuss problems, to communicate by e-mail, customer, competitor (to compete, competitive), employer, employee, salary (high/low), staff, team (to work in a team), supplier (to supply), dangerous, safe, empty, busy, job, expensive, healthy, cheap, exciting, boring, to travel much in job, sales, colleague.

Learn the words for a dictation (from Russian into English, units 16-30).

To increase, to decrease, to rise, to fall, to go up, to go down, budget, to save, to spend, to lend, to borrow, to get, to pay, to be good/bad with money, cash, comfortable, convenient, to confirm, price, production, to work on project, to launch, to speak on the phone, to listen, to explain, to contact, to download, to load, to delete, to log on, to book, to run a business, turnover, profit, costs, margin, stocks and shares.

Exercises.

Complete these sentences with either the present simple or the present continuous form of the verbs in brackets.

1. We normally ..hold..(hold) our sales conference in Mumbai, but this year we ....... (hold) it in Delhi.

2. Although we ...... (use) our own sales representative at the moment, we generally ...... (use) agents in China.

3. Tatsuo ....... (work) for a financial magazine. At the moment, he ...... (write) an article on trading.

4. Usually our Sales Director ........ (deal) with important customers, but I (deal) with all enquiries while she is on holiday.

5. I ....... (come) from Poland, but at the moment I ........ (live) in Germany.

6. John Lewis ....... (want) to continue with expansion this year.

Complete the job advertisement below with either the present simple or the present continuous form of the verbs in the box.

be, consider, employ, have, grow, look, need, offer, offer, prepare.

Sales Manager.

We ..... (1) one of the largest mobile-phone retailers in Europe. We ..... (2) independent and impartial advice on mobile phones. We ..... (3) more than 800 stores in 10 countries, and we ..... (4) fast. We ..... (5) over 3,000 workers. Currently, we ..... (6)the next stage in our development, and we ..... (7) for major growth outside Europe. We ..... (8) for people who are reliable, confident and enthusiastic. We ..... (9) experienced people who want to work for an expanding company. We ..... (10) a competitive salary and private health insurance. We are willing to reward staff with attractive performance-based bonuses.

Match the words (1-8) to their definitions (a-h).

1. lifestyle     2. workaholic   3. workload   4. deadline   5. flexitime     6. work-life balance   7. quality of life   8. working environment

a) a system where employees choose the time they start and finish work each day b) a time or date by which you have to do something c) how personally satisfied you are with the way you live and work d) someone who cannot stop working and has no time for anything e) the ability to give a good amount of time to your work and to outside interests, e.g. family f) the amount of work a person is expected to do g) the people, things and atmosphere around you at work h) the way people choose to organise their lives