高级听力 Unit 8 Part 1

主要介绍英国每年有多少假期，英国人民会怎样度过他们的假期，以及他们对什么满意，对什么不满意。

Holidays in Britain

Nearly all British people in full-time jobs have at least four week’s holiday a year, often in two or three separate periods. The normal working week is 35-40 hours, Monday to Friday. People who have to work in shifts with unsocial hours are paid extra for convenience. More over-time is worked at extra pay than in most other Western European countries, but there is relatively little “moonlighting” -- that is, independent work for pay in leisure hours. Another way of saying this is that the “black economy”, involving work paid privately in cash and not officially recorded or taxed, is relatively small.

There are only eight official public holidays a year, only one of them in the six months before Christmas. None of them celebrates anything to do with state or nation, though the first Monday in May was made a “bank holiday” by a recent Labour government as the British holiday in honour of working people.

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