The Meaning of Headlines: 'silver linings'

The Meaning of Headlines: 'silver linings' - employment

The Economist published an article on August 12, 2015, with the headline: 'The jobs market – Silver linings.’ What does ‘silver linings’ mean?

Urban Dictionary defines ‘silver lining’ as a phrase ‘used to tell someone that there is a brighter side to the problem they are facing.’ The saying ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ means that with every problem or difficulty there may also be the potential for a good or beneficial outcome. The song, ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ in the Monty Python film Life of Brian is a classic example of looking for the silver lining in the dark cloud.

Hence, does the headline of The Economist article lead readers to some potential good news about the job market? To see silver linings readers need to see some potential good news.

The article commences with ‘between 2008 and 2014, the number of Britons in work rose by 2m.’ That sounds promising. But the next sentence is ‘But average weekly earnings fell by 8% in real terms, in spite of a rise in working hours.’ That does not sound promising – no silver lining in that sentence. The article calls this dilemma ‘the productivity puzzle’ in which there is a strong economic recovery, but output per worker per hour has fallen.

The article states that ‘there was better news on the wages front … Britons are now getting a pay rise. Wages rose by 2.4% year-on-year in the second quarter.’ It adds that ‘in other areas, too, the jobs market is returning to its pre-recession norm.’ It seems like there is still some bad news, because the article mentions that ‘over the past year the number of full-timers has risen faster than employment overall, while the number of part-timers and freelancers has fallen.’ That’s good news for full-timers, but not so good news for people wanting part-time work. I still can’t see where the silver linings are in real terms.

‘Economists are mainly upbeat about these trends, which suggest that the period of low productivity and low wages may be coming to an end’ says the article. Why? Because ‘they see the period of falling productivity and real wages after the recession as an aberration.’ But the article continues with more good news and more bad news, ‘Immigration from crisis-struck Europe and welfare cuts have increased Britain’s labour supply, keeping wages down and encouraging employers to hire more workers and invest less in machinery and other forms of capital. But with unemployment now nearing its post-2000 average again, labour shortages are pushing up wages, cooling hiring.’ The article’s concluding remark is ‘And with real earnings still 5.7% below their peak in 2008, the recovery still has much further to go.’ So where are these silver linings mentioned in the headline? They seem a little off-white to me.

The scorecard for The Economist headline is 60% - the article gives examples of a slight improvement in the job market only to give a negative statement in the next sentence. Employment overall is up, pay is down, working hours are up, a pay rise in forthcoming and the number of full-timers is up, but part-timers are down, freelances are down, productivity is down, immigration is up, labour supply is up, wages are still down, investment in machinery is down, recruitment is down, and we still have a way to go before the economic recovery is stable. Silver linings – not really. This is more like a rollercoaster. Up and down and up and down. A better headline would be: ‘The jobs market – Rollercoasting.’

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/08/jobs-market

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