dire 復習
少子高齢化などの影響で、日本での外国人労働者の必要性についてさまざまな意見が出ています。
Japan’s need for foreign labor to get dire as 2050 nears
As the nation struggles with a shortage of workers and an aging population, this is the first in a four-part New Year’s series examining Japan’s immigration policy.
Tokyo-based Ips Inc. is a telecom firm specializing in business targeting Japan’s 250,000 Filipinos, the third-largest foreign community in the nation. Masako Uemori, one of its top executives, has keenly felt major changes in the business environment over the past 10 years.
In 2006 the company launched a dispatch service that sends Filipino caregivers to day care centers for the elderly. At that time, few facilities were willing to use the firm’s new service, Uemori recalled.
“They didn’t even open the door for us. They asked, ‘Why do we have to hire foreigners?’ ” Uemori recalled.
“But the situation has been totally reversed. Now, day care centers ask us to find workers at any rate because they are running out of caregivers,” she said in a recent interview with The Japan Times.
取り上げる単語は"dire"です。『ジーニアス英和辞典』第４版（大修館）で調べてみると、「おそろしい、ものすごい、悲惨な」や「（必要、危険などが）差し迫った、（貧困などが）極端な、ひどい」、「おそまつな」などの意味がありました。ここでは、「必要が差し迫った」という意味で使われていると考えられます。LDOCEでは、"extremely serious or terrible"と定義されています。(Akim)
dire issue - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森からdire warnings - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森からdire #2 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
