“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.“
It’s a quote from the book “1984”. Where a dystopian government routinely makes up fake numbers and even changes the numbers daily. The OP is either indicating that they don’t trust the government’s employment statistics, or the OP is indicating something along the lines of “yesterday we laid off 1000 workers, today we hired 500 workers” where the headline is +500 instead of -500.
Thanks. Yes, I am aware of the origin and its implications, but was hoping the OP had more to it. I agree that it feels a bit manipulative, this "god number from the heavens".
