Meltdown or Economic Cycle

Listening to Radio 4 this morning both heads of Marks & Spencer and Next, although publishing slightly disappointing results said that there was no need for panic and that actually they felt their businesses were doing pretty well. I appreciate that they have a vested interest in saying that however the negative press and media really is getting too much.

The business report on BBC1 this morning had a KPMG/REC survey that showed absolute doom and gloom. Yes, things are tough however get used to it and adapt.

What both Next and M&S said was that the strong would get stronger and the weak would struggle to survive.

I run a recruitment business among other things and can see by the general profile of the candidates who are comingthrough who have been made redundant, they are coming from smaller companies that often we haven't heard of. There are few decent, well run companies that are making any redundancies at all! M&S, they are closing 25 of their Simply Food stores, not the main ones in city centres such as Leeds. This is because the model of that size store in the location they chose was wrong - not because of some freefall of their business. Look at the size of their profits! They have also made some people at their head office redundant - who wouldn't do that given the opportunity to cut costs when arguably they have been overstaffed for some time.

I really think it's time for the media to take a long hard look at themselves and start to pick out some more positive things to cover in the economy....or am I just being naive that anyone wants to listen to positive news stories!!!