大象传媒

Migrant Figures
What proportion of the new jobs created since 1997 have gone to foreign workers?That is a question which the government has found difficult to answer.

The Department of Work and Pensions had to revise its answer three times in one week: first it said the proportion was 30%, then said it was 41%. The latest estimate is over half.

Why did the government get the figures wrong? Simple failure to add up everyone in the relevant categories and the use of projections to predict the future were part of the cause.

Presenter Tim Harford spoke to Frank Field MP who spotted the errors using a combination of guesswork, common sense and basic maths.

Our Survey Reveals...

Numbers sell and numbers tell a story. But is the story always true? Many of the surveys you read about have been commissioned by a company which wants to get its product in the newspapers and on the airwaves.

The numbers the surveys "reveal" give the company a reason to be talking about the issue at hand and, in the language of the marketing companies, to "own" that issue. Is it a bit of fun? Or getting in the way of real information?

A Kilo Crisis?

How much does a kilogram weigh? The guardians of the world's weights and measures are no longer sure.

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