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260 – Contributed Oral Poster Presentations: Section on Statistical Education
Back to the Future: Using Current Regression Variables to Forecast Forward from Historical Net Birth/Death Employment
Victoria Battista
Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program estimates employment in the United States using sample-based calculations of over-the-month employment change plus a birth/death model forecast. The birth/death model accounts for changes in employment that are not accounted for in the CES sample. One part of this model, the net birth/death forecasts, has regularly added between 800,000 and 1,000,000 jobs to the CES employment level on an annual basis. During the most recent recession, the birth/death residual dropped to less than 300,000, a change that was not picked up by the forecasting model and resulted in a very large benchmark revision. CES has been conducting research to determine if the CES birth/death model, based currently on historical time series, could benefit from the incorporation of an additional, more timely regression variable.