Abstract

The number of persons subject to social security contributions for Germany is published by the Federal Employment Agency only after two months of waiting, and then only extrapolated values. Final values are only available after six months. This publication lag makes it difficult to Conduct short-term forecasts; a suitable selection of leading indicators plays a crucial role. Since there are monthly data on the number of people subject to compulsory health insurance without publication lag, it appears promising to use these numbers to improve forecasts of social insurance employees. The aim of the project is to improve the forecasts of social insurance employees using data from the statutory health insurance. In the best case, an improvement of the forecast accuracy is achieved for the near future, as well as for current and past, but not yet published or only projected values (nowcasting). The findings from this study could prove useful also for the short-term forecast (project no. 1199) or the IAB Labour Market Barometer (project no. 1387).