Können offene Stellen als Vorlaufindikator für Neueinstellungen dienen? : Ergebnisse aus der IAB-Erhebung des gesamtwirtschaftlichen Stellenangebots

"In economic research, empirical evidence has been missing on the question whether vacancies can be seen as a forward indicator for employment. Discussing current trends in vacancies, this is often assumed: An increase in the number of job vacancies gets linked to good prospects for employment. What has been missing is empirical evidence that is grounded on representative data for an economy as a whole. Based on data from the German Job Vacancy Survey, we shed some light on the relationship between job vacancies and hires. For the first time this is explored with data on job vacancies in Germany that is representative for the economy as a whole. We estimate a dynamic linear panel model taking into account the time series structure of the data. The analyses show a significant and positive relationship between immediately to be filled vacancies and new hires. The latter were drawn from the statistics of the German Federal Employment Agency. The effect is strongest with a time-lag of two quarters. Including marginal, small-scale employment (geringfügige Beschäftigung) into our estimation we also found a positive and significant effect of vacancies on hirings in the same quarter. The findings presented herein will be the starting point for our further research on the role of job vacancies in the labor market." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))