APIEVocabulary: Economy, Jobs and Automation
Economy, jobs and automation
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Economy, Jobs and Automation
Lesson 1 of 6 · Core Vocabulary, Grammar in Context & Pronunciation
📋 How to use this lesson
🧑🏫 For Teachers
• Allocate 20 minutes: 7 minutes for vocabulary review, 8 minutes for interactive practice, and 5 minutes for shadowing.
• Use the matrix and gap-fill sections for quick formative assessment before moving to spoken production.
🎓 For Learners
• Review the three thematic word clusters and internalize the collocations and memory tips first.
• Complete the 16 practice items without checking the word table, then record your speech in the shadowing lab.
Vocabulary Master Table
10 C1-level terms for the modern labour market, economic transition, and automation.
The Workforce
Meaning: All the people who work in a particular company, industry, or country.
Key collocations: skilled workforce, aging workforce, enter the workforce
"The country is facing a severe shortage of healthcare professionals as its workforce ages rapidly."
Meaning: The rate at which goods are produced or work is completed, especially in relation to the time and money spent.
Key collocations: boost productivity, hinder productivity, labor productivity
"Investments in cutting-edge software were intended to boost productivity across all departments."
Meaning: A situation in which growth, development, or activity ceases or stands still.
Key collocations: economic stagnation, wage stagnation, period of stagnation
"Despite rising corporate profits, middle-class employees have endured a decade of wage stagnation."
Meaning: Not securely held or in position; dangerously likely to fall, collapse, or fail; uncertain.
Key collocations: precarious employment, precarious position, live precariously
"Many gig workers remain in precarious employment without health insurance, pensions, or paid sick leave."
Change at Work
Meaning: The use of largely automatic equipment, software, or robotics to operate a process or system.
Key collocations: rapid automation, workplace automation, automate routine tasks
"Widespread automation in logistics has transformed warehouse management and order fulfillment."
Meaning: The practical introduction of new ideas, products, methods, or devices that add value.
Key collocations: technological innovation, foster innovation, innovative approach
"The firm fosters innovation by allowing research engineers dedicated time to experiment with new technologies."
Meaning: To obtain goods or services from an outside or foreign supplier, especially in place of an internal source.
Key collocations: outsource labor, outsource IT services, offshore outsourcing
"To reduce operational costs, the bank decided to outsource its customer helpline to an overseas agency."
Meaning: To take over the place, role, or position of someone or something; to force someone out of a job.
Key collocations: displace workers, displace manual labor, job displacement
"Generative AI has begun to displace workers in routine copywriting, translation, and data-entry roles."
Losing and Rebuilding
Meaning: The state of no longer being needed for work and therefore losing one's job; dismissal due to job closure.
Key collocations: face redundancy, make sb redundant, redundancy package
"Over five hundred administrative employees faced redundancy following the corporate merger."
Meaning: To learn, or teach someone, new skills so that they can do a different job or adapt to technical changes.
Key collocations: retrain workers, retrain as an engineer, retraining scheme
"Government initiatives offer subsidies to help displaced factory workers retrain for careers in renewable energy."
Practice Exercises
Test how well you know and use these 10 words.
Collocation Matrix
Select the single verb that accurately completes each natural business collocation.
Dialogue Gap-Fills
Fill in the blank in each workplace conversation. Choose from this word bank:
Item 5 · Office Dialogue A
Manager: "Our staff members are spending four hours a day manually entering shipping receipts."
Analyst: "If we implement robotic process ___ in accounting, we could free them up for higher-value analysis."
Item 6 · Policy Dialogue B
Consultant: "Almost half of our senior technicians will be eligible for retirement within three years."
Director: "That means nearly thirty percent of our total ___ will need to be replaced by next summer."
Item 7 · HR Meeting C
HR Head: "Rather than laying off the assembly line crew when the plant digitizes, what should we propose?"
Union Rep: "The company must offer to ___ these employees so they can supervise the newly installed robotic units."
Item 8 · Labour Union Discussion D
Researcher: "Why are zero-hour contract couriers protesting outside the headquarters?"
Organizer: "Because they are trapped in ___ working conditions with zero guaranteed income or paid leave."
Choose the Word
All three choices fit the grammar, but only ONE matches the precise contextual meaning.
Item 9: Although headline GDP showed slight gains, persistent wage ___ left the purchasing power of ordinary families completely flat for seven consecutive years.
Item 10: Venture capital funds rushed to back green energy startups that offered genuine technological ___ rather than mere marketing repackaging.
Item 11: Facing stringent budget cuts, the municipal council resolved to ___ payroll administration and facilities maintenance to specialist contractors.
Item 12: Under statutory employment laws, staff members who are made ___ after two years of service are entitled to severance compensation.
Word Formation
Change the prompt word in parentheses into its correct grammatical derivative.
The central bank raised alarms about a ___ economy characterized by zero private investment and low consumer confidence.
Startups that deploy ___ solutions to supply chain bottlenecks consistently outperform conservative market incumbents.
Without unemployment insurance, freelance gig workers live ___, often just one missed invoice away from financial crisis.
Public investment in worker ___ is paramount to ensuring that employees displaced by automation can re-enter skilled trades.
Pronunciation & Shadowing Lab
Listen, repeat, and record your voice to build natural rhythm and pronunciation.
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____Primary stress on third syllable: pro-duc-TIV-i-ty
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____Primary stress on second syllable: re-DUN-dan-cy
[Bài tập luyện nói]
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