Caller ID is Destroying Our Understanding of the Jobs Market
The UK's Office for National Statistics used to knock on doors and ask people if they were employed, as a traditional way of compiling the country's labor market data.
But when Covid-19 forced social distancing in 2020, door-knocking was out. At one point during the pandemic, the survey was reliant on how many phone numbers it could find for a representative sample — and also on people actually answering their mobile phones when an unknown number called. Only a quarter of Britons say they answer such calls, with most wary of scams. Fewer that half of UK households have a landline, and those numbers can be difficult to find.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
4 hours ago
- Washington Post
Don't use Face ID at protests
Cookie Choices for EU, Swiss & UK Residents We and our 913 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting I Accept enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. Selecting Reject All or withdrawing your consent will disable them. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Manage Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage . Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy. If you click 'I accept,' in addition to processing data using cookies and similar technologies for the purposes to the right, you also agree we may process the profile information you provide and your interactions with our surveys and other interactive content for personalized advertising. If you are an EU, Swiss, or UK resident and you do not accept, we will process cookies and associated data for strictly necessary purposes and process non-cookie data as set forth in our If you click 'I accept,' in addition to processing data using cookies and similar technologies for the purposes to the right, you also agree we may process the profile information you provide and your interactions with our surveys and other interactive content for personalized you are an EU, Swiss, or UK resident and you do not accept, we will process cookies and associated data for strictly necessary purposes and process non-cookie data as set forth in our Privacy Policy (consistent with law and, if applicable, other choices you have made).
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Joy and grief for lone India crash survivor's family
The UK-based family of the lone survivor of the Air India crash were torn on Friday between joy at his miracle escape and grief at the loss of his brother. "We are happy Vishwash has been saved, but on the other hand we are just heartbroken about Ajay," his cousin told AFP outside the family home in central Leicester. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, is believed to be the only person to have survived the crash when Air India Flight 171 plummeted from the sky shortly after taking off from the northern Indian city of Ahmedabad. His brother, Ajay Kumar Ramesh, was on the same flight, but is believed to have perished in the disaster. There were 242 passengers and crew on the plane, including 53 British citizens. At least 24 people were killed on the ground, officials said, after the aeroplane landed on a canteen building where students were having lunch. Since Thursday's tragedy, the small Leicester street where Ramesh's parents and younger brother lived has been flooded with visitors. Ramesh lives not far away with his wife and son, his cousin Hiren Kantilal, 19, told AFP. Ajay also lived in the town, one of the oldest in England, and the two brothers ran a confectionary business together. "They are wonderful people, and heartful people. They are greatest men I have ever seen in my life, both of them," said Kantilal. The brothers were returning to the UK after spending a few weeks on holiday in India, and the family had been waiting to go and pick them up at Gatwick airport. - 'I am totally fine' - Shortly after the crash, they were shocked when Ramesh, who had reportedly been in seat 11A, called his father to say he was alive. Ajay was seated at the other end of the row. "Our plane has been crashed," Ramesh told his dad, according to his cousin. "He was bleeding all over him, in the face and everything, and he said: 'I am just waiting for my brother and I don't know how I get out of the plane'. "He said: 'do not worry about me, try to find about Ajay Kumar' and he said: 'I am totally fine'." Kantilal said his cousin had waited for about 10 to 15 minutes seeking his brother, and then was whisked away to hospital by the rescue services. Images which went viral on social media apparently showed Ramesh walking away from the wreckage of the 787-8 Boeing Dreamliner, and have been splashed across the front pages of British media along with a photo of him in his hospital bed. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a visit to Ramesh on Friday at the hospital where he is being treated for burns and other injuries, footage on his YouTube channel showed. "Everything happened in front of me, and even I couldn't believe how I managed to come out alive from that," Ramesh said from his hospital bed, speaking in Hindi to national broadcaster DD News. His parents had also been desperately trying to contact his brother Ajay on Thursday. "The call was going through, but no-one was answering the call," Kantilal said. At the family home, relatives were frantically scanning their phones to try to buy a flight to Ahmedabad later on Friday afternoon. Downing Street said that the foreign ministry had been in touch with Ramesh to offer him consular assistance. mhc/alm/jkb/bc
New York Times
11 hours ago
- New York Times
When Myth Is the Message
This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page. We in the modern world tend to understand the word 'myth' as a synonym for 'falsehood.' But that is not how our ancestors understood it. Indeed, the ancient mind did not draw the same line between myth and fact that we do. Whether we are speaking of Zeus forcing his father to vomit up his siblings or Jesus being born in a manger, these tales were never meant to be read as factual reports. They were meant to fire the imagination, to illuminate hidden truths and, most of all, to bring about transformation. The power of myth lies in its capacity to move a listener from one state of being to another — from confusion to clarity, from despair to hope, from disorientation to meaning. Myths are the packaging for truth. They are the language of religion. Scripture deals in what might be called 'sacred history,' a narrative realm that blends fact and fiction to convey timeless truths. The authors and transmitters of these sacred texts were not seeking facts; they were seeking meaning. Our modern conception of history — the critical analysis of observable and verifiable past events — is only a handful of centuries old. It arose alongside the Enlightenment and the scientific method in the 1600s, and while immensely valuable, it is not the lens through which sacred texts were written. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
