Berkshire's businesses are currently adding very few employees.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Judged on hiring at Berkshire's existing businesses in about September 2010, leaving out headcount added through acquisitions such as BNSF. True: Berkshire filings or management statements show employment at existing operations roughly flat, or only slightly up (about 1–2% or less), over 2010. Mostly true: there was modest growth (around 2–4%) that could still be called 'very few'. Mixed: the evidence is split, with substantial hiring at some major units and flat employment at others. Mostly false: organic employment grew materially (more than about 4%). False: there was strong, broad hiring across subsidiaries.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 printmgr file - Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (2010 Annual Report, shareholder letter) Own record
“Combined, these operations earned $362 million pre-tax in 2010 compared to $1.3 billion in 2006, and their employment has fallen by about 9,400.”
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E2 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 2010 Annual Report (Chairman's letter) Berkshire Hathaway Inc. · 26 February 2011 Own record
“Combined, these operations earned $362 million pre-tax in 2010 compared to $1.3 billion in 2006, and their employment has fallen by about 9,400.”
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E3 [PDF] 2010 Letter - BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Own record
“Combined, these operations earned $362 million pre-tax in 2010 compared to $1.3 billion in 2006, and their employment has fallen by about 9,400.”
Reasoning
The only evidence (E1–E3) is one sentence from Berkshire's 2010 annual report letter. It says employment at the operations it refers to, called only "these operations", has fallen by about 9,400. The quote gives no period for that decline and covers only the operations it refers to, not Berkshire's existing operations as a whole. The evidence therefore cannot place 2010 growth in jobs at existing operations within the bands the criteria set.
Cite this claim
Warren Buffett, “Berkshire's businesses are currently adding very few employees.” (said 23 September 2010). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_af138186e976, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_af138186e976
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Warren Buffett
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Mostly true
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Mixed
“big businesses, generally have done very well about travel and entertainment”
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Mostly true
“the big ones have done terrifically”
Large food manufacturers have done terrifically during the pandemic.
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Resolved true
“we've shut down a lot of people in this, in this particular induced recession and others are prospering”
The pandemic-induced recession has shut down many people's businesses while others are prospering.
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.