It was certainly a big blow, but it was not quite as painful as some had predicted it would be.

The news that STMicroelectronics, by far Malta’s largest exporter and one of the country’s largest employers with nearly 2,000 workers on its books, is to shed up to 450 employees was not the best news the country could have been given as it seeks to buffer its small and open economy from the increasingly tangible effects of the global recession.

The Malta Independent broke the news that ST was planning to reduce its staff complement in Malta and at other plants across the world the day after Finance Minister Tonio Fenech was reported by The Times as saying that the government was not aware of any such plans.

In the days that followed, the TMID story was picked up and followed by other media and speculation began on the number of workers who were to lose their jobs at the Malta plant.

All that was officially known at the time – based on information straight from the horse’s mouth, or rather the mouths of the group’s CEO and managing director – was that the group planned to reduce its global headcount by 4,500, and that 1,300 of those job cuts were to be split between the multinational’s Maltese and Moroccan operations.

The Sunday Times had gone as far as to state that 60 per cent of the Maltese employees were to be discharged. But the corresponding figure of 1,150 Maltese employees facing the axe appeared somewhat exaggerated when taking into account the group’s already stated intentions.

The latter report undoubtedly created unnecessary concern among employees and their families, and one has to question whether such sensationalism was appropriate under the circumstances – even more so when just a few days later the assessment turned out to be far from accurate.

In the end, it transpired that the Kirkop headcount would be reduced by between 400 and 450 employees – amounting to between 20 and 23 per cent of the workforce, or less than half of what had been speculated.

And while sensationalising a state of affairs on which thousands of livelihoods depend is in poor taste, equally so is downplaying the situation as was done by Nationalist Party newspaper In-Nazzjon. The paper played down the extent of the problem by reporting that only 200 ST employees were to lose their jobs, since the remaining 250 headcount to be downsized would result from ‘natural wastage’ created by retiring workers.

The fact of the matter is that ST would have downsized its Malta plant by 450, whether the employees in question were about to retire or not, and stating that only 200 would lose their jobs obscures the facts and diverts attention from the fact that the company will not be hiring new workers to take the places of retiring employees.

As such it is not correct to state that the company is to shed 200 employees when the toll is to amount to more than double that. The politics behind the interpretation is understandable, but it is clear that In-Nazzjon, taking a line similar to that of the government, was merely trying to tone the problem down.

It is a mistake to play this game. The extent of the difficulties the country is facing needs to be fully understood if we are to take the right measures to fend them off. If we go on thinking or trying to make people think that the wounds are not as deep as they really are, we run the risk requiring major surgery rather than a minor procedure.

A responsible and realistic balance needs to be found.

We cannot go to one extreme and speak of disasters that are bigger than they really are. Such behaviour often leads to panic, especially for the people directly involved – in this case hundreds of employees at the ST Kirkop plant.

Nor can we go to the other extreme and pretend the problem is not as big as it is, and in so doing give a false impression of the real difficulties at hand.

It is easy to forget that when talking numbers in cases such as these, each and every increment represents one more person with a job to safeguard and a family to provide for. As such, employees have a right to know where they stand within the bigger picture of their companies, and when such information is not forthcoming from the company, the media is sometimes able to provide that picture.

But in painting a picture of a complex landscape, as in the case of ST, it is the media’s onus to state the facts, and not lean toward the sensationalist nor downplay what is a very real and present situation.