Measuring Swiss Employment Growth: A Measurement-Error Approach

The two main employment statistics from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office often show different dynamics on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Applying optimal signal-extraction techniques, this paper constructs a new measure of Swiss employment growth that provides a unified picture of historical employment dynamics. Consistent with the statistical properties of unemployment — the natural counterpart of employment for which a full census is available — the new measure exhibits lower volatility and higher persistence than implied by each of the two statistics separately, and it also displays a higher correlation with unemployment.