Friday, May 02, 2008
Good news! The bad news isn't so bad!
As usual, the nation's newspapers do their best to spin the news, as illustrated by this AP headline:
Employers cut fewer jobs in April, jobless rate fallsYes, the "good news" is that "only" 20,000 jobs were lost in April, an "improvement" over the 81,000 jobs lost in March. Left unmentioned is that 150,000 jobs were needed just to stay even with population increase, meaning that the actual job shortfall wasn't "only" 20,000 jobs, it was more like 170,000 jobs.
Of course, even that 20,000 is probably bogus, as we learn from the next paragraph, which informs us that "Job losses for both February and March turned out to be a bit deeper than previously reported." So odds are that even the "non-population-inflation-adjusted" job loss is going to exceed 20,000 jobs.
But c'mon! "Many economists...were bracing for job cuts of 75,000," so the news is so much better than expected. Although I assure you, if those economists thought their own job was on the line, their feelings would be stronger than just "bracing."
In local news, Sun Microsystems is cutting 1,500 to 2,500 jobs.
