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crissindahouse on 02 May 2014
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QuintonMcLeod said:
vivster said:

Japan has an unemployment rate of 4% which in an unbiased sample of 1000 people would be about 40. Those would hardly have an impact on the overall results of this poll.

And how would it be then that some of these companies wouldn't be on the list? Certainly the top 10 in this list wouldn't change one bit.


To use the 4% as a way of saying, "Oh, it's only just 40 people" is very misleading. The point to the matter is, if the unemployed were included in the survey, the results would be different. This is a very basic concept of surveys. 

Surveys have multiple factors which can skewer their results: The particular area the survey is conducted, the number of people surveyed, the particular questions asked, and etc. Removing the unemployed from the survey removes a huge factor that would most certainly change that list, despite how low unemployement is in Japan.

Same goes for the United States. If you conduct a survey asking people their opinions about a particular show, you will get one set of results. If your survey only survyed, for example, white Americans, then your results will differ if you were to include minorities. African Americans only make up around 15 - 20% of the total population. If, for example again, you were to include African Americans in your survey about a particular show, it will change the results on your survey, even though the majority of your respondants are white Americans. 

Do you understand? The survey purposefully excluding a particular group of people (for no good reason) makes this survey bias and misleading, because it doesn't include _all_ people.

The result would be still not much different for Sony or many others in this case. Sony got 406 of 1000 possible votes. If 40 of these 1000 voters would have been unemployed there would have been maybe 20 votes less for Sony (that's rounded up, probably more like 16) if none of these (also unrealistic) would vote for Sony which would put them still at 38.6% but probably at 39-40%. For companies who got 20-25% votes in this poll the to expected loss of votes would be even lower since they already got only every 4th-5th vote. So, those could maybe expect to lose ~8 of their 200-250 votes. 

Then there is the fact that employed people will also consider a company as not so great if it's known to fire people even if they are still employed. Or do you expect that employed people don't care about a company which has a bad name if it comes to that just because they have a job? That took probably also already some votes away of these companies.

It would also not push other companies way up since there is no reason why employed persons shouldn't vote for companies unemployed would since both would obviously vote for these companies for the reason that they are good potential employers who didn't fire people. 

So, those who aren't liked by unemployed people would get only a very slow percentual downgrade and those companies who are liked by them would probably get 0 extra votes since employed people have no reason to vote less for these companies.

You are right, it's not a 100% accurate survey because of this but it would change not much and almost all companies in that list would be still there and not like you said "many wouldn't"

I mean, to even think that employed people don't care about companies who made a name as companies who fire people in masses is beyond me. In reality there is no real reason why employed people shouldn't think the same as unemployed in this case only because they have a job.