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Looking for a job in the new year? Your success may depend on the wire service that supplies your news. According to the Associated Press, job prospects will brighten in early '03. According to Reuters, they won't. Here's the kicker: Both services are interpreting the same data, the latest report from the nation's largest employment agency, Manpower Inc.

Of course, like flies in a web, statistics can be spun up or down. Still, there's something amusing -- and confusing -- in seeing the wire services take off in opposite directions with the same catch. The difference was especially striking at Washingtonpost.com, which ran both stories under dueling -- if dulling -- heads: "Firms Plan More Hires in Early '03, Survey Says," but also "Most U.S. Firms Do Not Plan More Hiring." Come again?

The facts: Manpower called up 16,000 employers and asked about their staffing plans for the first quarter of the new year. The conflict: While AP focused on the evidence that more employers expect to hire than fire (20% vs. 12%), Reuters homed in on the majority (62%), who plan no changes at all. (Consider the remaining 6% dazed and confused). So, Reuters led with the claim that "U.S. employers do not plan to boost hiring," while AP declared that "Companies plan to hire slightly more." To confuse matters further, the survey does not appear to take into account how many people are being hired or fired, so it's hard to see how the total employment picture might change.

The numbo jumbo is frustrating. Yet, the interpretation of such data can have serious consequences. For instance, if the job market is perceived to be improving, Congress might be less willing to keep extending unemployment benefits.

So how to choose between Reuters and AP? Well, there's always rival wire service United Press International. It walked the sunny side of the stats by emphasizing that more bosses plan to hire early next year than did during the start of this year. The future, says UPI, will be "much brighter." All right, UPI, we'll let you break the tie. Now, tell us ... are you hiring? - Lori Patel

Most U.S. Firms Do Not Plan More Hiring (Reuters)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3559-2002Nov18.html

Firms Plan More Hires In Early '03, Survey Says (Associated Press)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3316-2002Nov17.html

Manpower: 1q hiring brighter (United Press International)
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021115-020621-8694r

Nation's job prospects brighten a bit
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/career/nov02/96677.asp

SW Florida job market looks strong this winter, survey says
http://www.naplesnews.com/02/11/business/d771283a.htm

Post-holidays job outlook appears woeful for Valley
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/business/articles/1118manpower18.html

More LI Firms To Hire Says Study
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzjobs1118,0,4072176.story

Cuts outpace hirings in region
http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/business/daily/1118b2bdigest.html

Pinch us, but who could've predicted the day would come when airport baggage screeners notched better press clips than airline execs? Here's a capsule of their respective coverage today: The screeners unveil their shiny-new federally employed ranks one day ahead of schedule, while the honchos for United Airlines pass around a tin cup in what reporters predict is a largely futile effort to snag nearly $2 billion in federal loans.

It's not a tin cup, really, but a 170-page turnaround plan that United execs are circulating to convince the Air Transportation Stabilization Board that the sagging airline is good for a $1.8 billion loan guarantee. In these recessionary times, United pledges to be a model of frugality, reducing its $2.4 billion a year in expenses to just $450 million next year.

Can United really cut its standard of living by that much? The Chicago Tribune yawned knowingly over the airline's weekend proclamation. It counted this as Weekend No. 3 for so-called significant announcements from United. Most of this weekend's release was a rehash of already-heard sacrifices, such as union concessions and a plan to retire a few dozen aircraft while deferring delivery on new ones. The only real news? Nine thousand jobs are being eliminated, that's on top of the 17,000 United has already axed since September 2001. Sounds like a lot of pink slips, but to the Wall Street Journal's analysis of United's plight, the new job cuts are incidental enough to wait until the fifth paragraph for a mention.

Reuters pooh-poohed the weekend "news" as part of the airline's "all-out public relations campaign" to win approval of the loan backing. United could be in a for a long wait: The Tribune noted that the ATSB has yet to finalize loan guarantees already tentatively approved for Aloha Airlines, Frontier Airlines, American Trans Air and US Airways. Worse, Reuters' no-name sources said, the pom-pom shaking could backfire if the government turns down United's loan app and the cuts go into place anyway as the airline enters bankruptcy. What are the odds for that? United's CFO wouldn't handicap them, according to the Journal. But the New York Times' analyst sources would and put the chances of United going down the bankruptcy drain at 95 percent or greater.

As for the baggage screeners, the once most lobotomized of airport workers are now 40,000 strong, "better paid, better dressed and with far more training than the workers they're replacing," according to USA Today. Only 15% of the screeners worked for the private firms that handled airport security until Congress insisted that it become a federally run job in the wake of Sept. 11. How well are they doing? USAT said it obtained documents that said the new screeners had detected, among other illegal booty, a loaded handgun hidden in a DVD player. Keeping it off the plane is a good idea for everyone's safety; keeping it away from United execs is for theirs. - Deborah Asbrand

United Set to Cut 9,000 Jobs in Bid for Solvency
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0211180146nov18,0,5889720.story

United Plans to Cut 9,000 Additional Jobs, Make Profit in 2004 (Reuters)
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-united18nov18,0,7131926.story

UAL Plans More Cuts at United Airlines
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3430-2002Nov17.html

United's Plan Includes Cutting Jobs and Flights
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/business/18UAL.html

UAL Encounters Obstacles To Federal Loan Guarantee
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB103757379163062588,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

Airport Security Arrives on Time
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-secure18nov18.story

Feds Take Over Airport Screening
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2002/2002-11-18-screeners.htm

Capellas is new WorldCom CEO
http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/15/news/companies/capellas/index.htm

Netcom group buys Asia Global Crossing
http://asia.cnn.com/2002/BUSINESS/asia/11/17/hk.global.biz/

SpectraSite Files for Chapter 11
http://www.wired.com/news/0,1713,,00.html

Credit Cards Seek New Fees on Web's Demimonde
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/technology/18PORN.html

Tax Relief, for the Very Meticulous
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/business/yourmoney/17SELL.html

Why the Next 'Harry Potters' May Take a Spell
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-potter18nov18001442,0,5324400.story

AOL Time Warner Sued Over Homestore Deals (Financial Times)
http://tinyurl.com/2sgs

Sims Family Values (Newsweek)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/835533.asp

Bond Fund, Rudolph Giuliani Become Players in WorldCom
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB103756187112038868,00.html
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Copyedited by Jim Duffy (jimduffy86@yahoo.com).

Editor and publisher: Jimmy Guterman (guterman@vineyard.com).

Media Unspun is produced by The Vineyard Group Inc.
Copyright 2002 Media Unspun, Inc., and The Vineyard Group, Inc.
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