Forecasting Employment in Europe : Are Survey Results Helpful?

In this paper we evaluate the forecasting power of employment expectations for total employment in 15 European states. Our data cover the period from 1998Q1 to 2012Q4. With in-sample and pseudo out-of-sample exercises we find that for most of the European states considered, the survey–based indicator outperforms a simple benchmark model and is therefore useful for generating more accurate employment forecasts. The best results are observed for one quarter ahead forecasts