Can Somebody Explain This?

This is the lead paragraph in today's Yahoo! jobs story:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of planned layoffs at U.S. companies in May was almost unchanged from April, when they touched a four-year low, suggesting employers are more upbeat about the economic outlook, a report on Wednesday showed.

Did I read that correctly: In other words, the number of announced job cuts in May equaled the number of announced job cuts in April. April's announced job cuts touched a four-year low.

The writer interprets this to mean "employers are more upbeat about the economic outlook."

1. That's one data point out of millions.
2. That one data point is almost equal to last month's data point.

How one can extrapolate this to "employers being more upbeat about the economy" is beyond me.

I can't make this stuff up.

Okay, that's my editorial comment for the day. Now back to the Bakken.