Dr Ramdip Rae, a surgeon in India who is due to take his UK entrance exams next month, said there was still a big incentive to sit the exams even if there was no job at the end of it.

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But he'd just sit there, like he was still getting clipped.

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Mr Maharaj said there were still some South Africans who "sit with their dogs in front in a van or truck with a worker at the back in pouring rain or extremely cold weather".

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Nominal wage inflation remains very low, as companies sit on vast piles of cash but remain reluctant to spend, and there is still a large amount of slack in the U.S. economy, particularly given a stubbornly high rate of unemployment stuck at 9%.

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There is a restlessness so terrible that you can no longer bear to sit still in your house.

NEWYORKER: Miracle Polish