Here is a great example of a BBC journalist setting up an ‘interview’ to get a preconceived idea of his own across.
Simon Jack starts off (2 hrs 36 mins) with the by now standard BBC sleight of hand question….asking the man from ‘Manpower Solutions’ what the answer is to the ‘big conundrum’…how is it possible that employment is growing when the economy is shrinking?
The BBC and Guardian love that question because it ‘accepts’ the statistics which are unassailable, employment is rising, but they can undermine them by claiming it is a ‘puzzle’ because…as we all know the economy is shrinking…isn’t it?
This quote from the Guardian puts in black and white the BBC attitude in this interview:
‘The coalition, with its kneejerk laissez-faire approach, is unlikely to share his prescription. But it’s evident from the desperate pace at which the Treasury and Department for Business are churning out half-baked growth policies that they are gravely concerned that the rapid rise in employment, while good news for individual workers and their families, may signal deep-seated problems in our recession-scarred economy.’
Firstly of course you have to believe that the economy is shrinking….the figures show that since 2010 it has only shrunk by 0.1% overall….hardly a disaster considering the state of our biggest trade partners over the Channel.
Personally I am none the wiser from what the Manpower Solutions fellow gabbled on about….we are in a ‘new reality, customers are much more sophisticated…the nature of employment is changing’….we’re are all going self employed or part time…neither of which the BBC counts as real jobs.
A new reality? The same employment patterns undoubtedly happen in every recession….then as the economy recovers jobs become full time and self employed people become established and themselves start to employ others….and the jobs market settles again…into the ‘old reality’.
Back to this interview and Simon Jack then intervenes and sidelines the person being interviewed so that he can put his own spin on things leaping on the ‘part time’ figures…‘Yes, the answer (to the conundrum) is simply the part time bit….we’re all doing less work and employ less people doing that work and so have more people not unemployed….which is good for the government but we’re not growing the economy.’
Is it just me but is that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard…apart from maybe Flanders suggesting we employ more public sector workers who then pay tax and so increase government revenues!?
Let me get that right…employers are taking on more people, not because they have more work in the factory or where ever, but because, well, em, just because. We all know employers employ people out of charity.
For Jack’s premise to be correct the employer would have to reduce the hours his workforce works, or reduce their wages hugely, and then take on more workers to take up the slack and keep production up to the norm…..with all the extra costs that would entail.
The figures don’t bear him out anyway…the BBC usually claims nearly all jobs created are part time….just not true…in the 3 months to July 100,000 jobs were full time and 136,000 part time.
Jacks claims that we have a part time work force of 1.8 million….which is a record…it would be…a low record…the figure is 8 million part timers.
It is an interview that seems to be just a vehicle to put over the standard BBC view of the economy…we’re all doomed.
It doesn’t even consider that the economic growth figures might actually be wrong as many business leaders believe….Dyson himself said he had a ‘good recession’…and is now employing more skilled people….along with many other big employers like Amazon.
The BBC does seem all too ready to talk down any good news story and find ways of undermining the government.
And as said before surely the question of why employment is rising wouldn’t be such a conundrum or puzzle if the BBC journalists got off their backsides and went out to find the businesses who were employing people and asked them why….perhaps they should employ a part timer to do that whilst Jack and Co sit around reading the Guardian drinking green tea.
The BBC just gabble and gargle-all those years of keeping the stink in the Westminster bubble car has turned them loopy.
I was hoping to shaft them for their “Forethought” programme on tonight-Baddiel, guilt-tripping crap…what`s not to loathe?
But the last half of the show was magnificent-Anthony McGowan and Christina Patterson gave me genuinely great radio, and changed my mindset in key ways-which is what great radio ought to do surely!
But tomorrow-You and Yours and Today-I just KNOW that we`ll be back to the angels in the NHS, and the vulnerable children on housing estates…as if the two essayists never said a dickie bird.
This was the BBC as it ought to be…sadly, we`ll not see the likes again until 2014.
The BBC can no longer sift what`s worth knowing anymore-too busy hoping that the next Labour lot will restore their pension shortfalls, should the rest of us be so stupid as to give them any chance of doing so.
The bit that Christina Patterson did was excellent and well worth a listen on iplayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01mrhyg/ she starts at about 45 min I think. It’s about the myth that all nurses are saints etc.
The BBC figures are from the Office of National Statistics.
See http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_276985.pdf
There is no bias in the numbers. But they clearly show a continued increase in part time jobs (8.12m) with nearly 1.5M part time workers wanting full time jobs. BBC never claims that all the jobs created are part time but correctly that more part time than full time jobs are created.
Since 2008 the number of people in full-time employment fell by 640,000
• the number of people in part-time employment increased by 628,000
The good news was increasing jobs in both categories but far more part time than full time jobs. Not bias. It’s the facts. The conundrum is the economy was in a double dip recession so why is unemployment decreasing? There are no easy answers.
But in pure number terms we’ve replaced full time jobs with part time jobs. No bias in the figures. Plain facts.
Women in work went up, but male unemployment went down. So why can’t men find work? Because they want full time jobs as often they remain breadwinners?
Biggest concern must be all the kids without jobs. Where are the jobs for these one million? That’s the Q everyone is ducking.
There is no bias in these figures. Nobody understands what is happening. BTW Amazon don’t pay UK tax, and Dyson off-shored production. A better example is Jaguar who took on 1000 workers for well paid jobs for their boming sales.
‘Biggest concern must be all the kids without jobs. Where are the jobs for these one million? That’s the Q everyone is ducking’.
Not on this website. Immigrants have taken 70% plus of all new jobs over the past 13 years, so cut immigration.
So if jobless figures rose, with less people were in part time work (but more people were in full time work), how do you think that would be reported?
Many people prefer part time work for family commitments so it’s not always at the request of those evil profit making corporations. Many companies sometimes would prefer full time staff, but have to legally offer part time work. You mention that more women are working, which probably describes this stat.
As you say, figures cannot be biased, but it’s the way you present them surely.
BTW, regarding Amazon not paying taxes. I’m sure their employees might?