Older staff are more productive than their younger colleagues, say researchers。

　　有研究显示，与年轻的员工相比，年长的员工的工作效率更高。

　　More mature members of staff may be weaker and less agile than their junior counterparts, but they more than compensate with their greater experience, ability to work in teams, and success at coping when things go wrong。

　　更加成熟的员工在反应的敏捷度上可能弱于资历浅的年轻员工，但他们丰富的经验却弥补了这一点，这点在与团队的合作上，以及在处理工作发生错误时表现得尤为明显。

　　The researchers say: ‘While older workers make more errors, perhaps due to declining physical attributes, they hardly make any severe errors, perhaps due to more experience。

　　研究者说：“尽管年长的员工或许会犯更多的错误，这也许是与他们体能下降有关，但他们却很少犯错，这又与他们丰富的工作经验不无关系。”

　　‘It is experience that prevents severe errors.’

　　“正是工作经验防止了错误的发生。”

　　The scientists who studied production lines at a Mercedes-Benz truck factory in southern Germany also found that younger, more highly educated workers were less productive than those who had fewer qualifications – perhaps because the educated workers got bored more easily。

　　科学家们在位于德国南部的奔驰汽车生产工厂中发现，那些年轻的受教育程度更高的工人其实在生产效率上海不如那些条件并不这样有效的员工，尽管有教育的员工对工作上手更快。

　　The researchers, from the University of Mannheim, said their findings debunked the idea that older workers should be made redundant to boost productivity。

　　从曼海姆大学的研究人员表示，他们的发现证明了年长员工的工作效率其实更高。

　　They write: ‘In many countries, lower productivity among older workers is used as a motivation for early retirement policies。

　　他们说，“在世界上的很多国家，抱怨年老员工工作效率低下通常是劝道他们提前退休的理由。”

　　‘If this were true, the ageing populations in many developed countries would have negative effects on overall productivity. These results cast doubt on such beliefs.’

　　“如果我们的想法是正确的，那么在很多发达国家中的老龄人口将对于社会的整体创造力产生负面影响。但研究的结果却与这样的观点背道而驰。”

　　The researchers argue that in sectors where physical strength is less important than in manufacturing, such as in the service sector, it is likely that older workers are even more productive。

　　研究者们认为，体能再现在生产中所占的重要性正在降低，例如在服务业中，年长员工的工作效率更高。

　　The researchers also found that a higher proportion of women in the workforce is bad for productivity in young teams and good in old teams。

　　研究者们还发现，在年轻的团队中，女性所占比例过高将对效率产生反作用，但这样的情况在年长的团队中刚好相反。

　　They say women make fewer errors, but young male workers get distracted, and are likely to make more errors, if women are in the team。

　　他们表示，女性出错的几率更低，但却会使得年轻的男性员工分心，团队中若有女性的存在，会使得他们更容易出错。