The Globe and Mail succumbs to irrational panic

This is getting to be a problem. A few weeks ago, the Globe ran this story:

Job cuts loom at Canadian firms: poll:  More than one-fifth of Canadian employers plan to reduce their headcount in the coming year as the financial crisis forces companies to cut costs, a compensation planning survey showed Monday. Mercer's updated survey showed 22.6 per cent of employers plan to cut jobs and more than half are considering the move. Employers are also taking other steps to cut costs.

What's missing from this story is the number of firms that were planning to increase hiring. Unfortunately, the survey in question didn't provide that, so the real question is why the headline wasn't 'Vast majority of firms not planning to cut jobs'.

And now there's this:

Canadian job cuts looming:  Nearly one in 10 employers think they'll cut staff in the first quarter of 2009, the highest level in a year, according to Manpower Canada's quarterly employment outlook survey. Sixteen per cent of employers plan to add staff – though that percentage is also sitting at a one-year low.

Emphasis added. That story simply doesn't match the headline. 'Employment to increase, but more slowly' would have done just fine. Using the word 'cuts' implies the employment will go down; the story and the survey is covers suggest just the opposite. (Compare the Globe headline with that of the CP wire story.)

These are times of great uncertainty, and it's important to understand just where we are. The Globe and Mail should be trying to inform its readers, not inventing apocalyptic headlines.

Comments

[Vadim P.]

Bad news is more attention-grabbing than good news. More sales for the newspaper.

I can definitely see where you're going though, since everybody else is encouraging spending.

[zero]

Sorry but I don't agree. The assumption is that firms either stay the same or increase. If firms plan to decrease then it is noteworthy. Here in Calgary people are getting laid off in droves as the oil sands projects cancel. This will filter into Edmonton sooner or later.

[Trevor]

Zero: Why should we assume that firms stay the same or increase? One should view a market economy as something with great flexibility. Firms come and go, and indeed whole occupations rise and fall. A substantial fraction of the workforce switches jobs each and every year (the exact statistic depends on how one measures occupational switches, but at the three-digit classification level of the BLS it is about one in five people).

We shouldn't concern ourselves with how many are losing their jobs but in how disruptive such a loss is to their lives! If adjustments can be made quickly, then no big deal; if slowly, then we have a problem. The real story the media should report on is how so many of the government plans to "help" these workers make adjustment so much harder (increased EI collection periods, for instance).

[seaandthemountains]

I think that was the assumption Trevor, because for so long that was the message re the economy: indeterminate growth.

I think the bigger problems is that there is no estimates on the numbers to fired/layed off or hired.... we have no estimate as to the net, so we are just guessing (not that an estimate would necessarily be accurate).

Given that November saw the highest job loss since 1982, I am not sure that it is that surprising that there is negative headlines though.

[ignorantmike]

Why wouldn't the Mop and Pail succumb to fear? Look at BCE! Look at Tribune! Declining readership, classified rev off cliff, other business units treading water (have you seen the ads on BNN?)...

All things considered, it's surprising that the Globe has managed to avoid going completely batsh*t crazy.

More to the point, and echoing prior comments, pure hiring/firing data is at best incomplete. What kind of work? Where is it? Pay? Term? blah blah etc. The mainstream media is constantly reporting ambiguous data, and constantly failing to provide context and discussion for a variety of reasons. In that sense the Globe's (and every other mainstream news provider) discussion of the survey is not surprising.

I suppose its fairly obvious that these surveys aren't particularly useful given all the bizarre events of the last while. It is very difficult to plan ahead these days.

[Manny, in Moncton]

I agree with ignorantmike. Given the political leanings of the G&M and knowing that the credibility of the three-headed coalition relies entirely on the perceived urgency of the economic crisis, I am surprised they don't sound more alarmist than that.