Realtime Economic Data in the Covid19-Crisis: On the Difficulty of Measuring Short-Time Work

Abstract

"Short-time work (Kurzarbeit) is the main instrument for retaining jobs during the pandemic in Germany and its numbers are treated as one leading indicator on the crisis’s severity. However, quickly available results from firm surveys consistently and considerably overestimated how many employees were in short-time work at any given time, compared to the official statistics that appear with a lag of several months. Leveraging an establishment survey which can be connected to administrative data, the authors investigate reasons for this overestimation." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Fitzenberger, B., Kagerl, C., Schierholz, M. & Stegmaier, J. (2021): Zeitnahe Daten in der Corona-Krise: Von der schwierigen Vermessung der Kurzarbeit. (IAB-Kurzbericht 24/2021), Nürnberg, 12 p.