UNEMPLOYMENT RATE MONTHLY EVALUATION APPROACHES BASED ON DATA FROM THE LABOUR FORCE SURVEY

Alexander Naydenov

Резюме: One of the most important indicators of the state of the economy of a given country is the unemployment rate. The need for thorough and timely analysis of the socio-economic processes in relation to the implementation of control over their development, as well as compliance with the requirements set by Eurostat for the ‘production’ of monthly estimates of the unemployment rate and harmonization of the methodology in the Community defines the search of approaches for monthly assessment of the unemployment level.<br><br>In statistical theory and practice there is a wide variety of methods and approaches for monthly assessment of unemployment, but their ‘ready-made’ use is impossible in Bulgarian conditions. The reasons for this are the specific characteristics and resources available in our country not only in terms of available data, but also in relation to the level of preparation of the methodological teams. The article presents the main approaches according to the specific opportunities for their application. Possible approaches to solving the ‘issue’ in the preparation of monthly estimates of unemployment are the direct assessments using techniques of weighting (calibration) of data in order to adjust the monthly data on population in different categories, and indirect estimates combining data from the NFS and applying modeling techniques (extrapolation and interpolation) of development in the series of the employed and the unemployed. A brief description of the steps of the application of these methods is made, and possible software to assist their implementation are indicated.<br><br>Based on experimental study with data from the Labour Force Survey it is established that the monthly assessment of the level of unemployment is entirely possible, and the most adequate method of evaluation is the direct one, since with the alleged error is smallest.<br><br>

Ключови думи: unemployment; monthly assessment; approaches

Дата на публикуване: 2015-01-14