Structural break adjustment and reestimation of data series on labor force participation in Liechtenstein

While demographic developments such as ageing have long been the subject of social and political debate, the labor shortage has also become the focus of attention in recent years. Labor force participation is an important determinant in both of the above-mentioned and interrelated topics. The labor market participation of women and older people are particularly important aspects, as the results of the Liechtenstein government's labor shortage working group have also shown. For this reason, too, efforts are continually being made to supplement the relevant indicators in the Growth Monitor and to expand the underlying database.
 

However, the official statistics in Liechtenstein do not contain any time series going back a long way on important key figures relating to the age and employment structure (such as the activity rate). The data available from the turn of the millennium onwards also show structural breaks. Published data series may contain structural breaks or statistical outliers, for example if the methodological concepts or guidelines change over time. However, the lack of long, comparable time series makes analyses of labor force participation in Liechtenstein more difficult.
 

In the research project described above, data surveys and back estimates were carried out on figures from Liechtenstein's population statistics in order to determine activity, employment and unemployment rates by gender and age group (total 2022-1980/1970/1960/1950/1941, by gender 2022-1999/1990/1980/1970/1960/1950/1941). These various adjustments were coordinated in such a way that the summation conditions were taken into account (e.g. the total of employed and unemployed persons should correspond to the number of economically active persons and the sum of economically active persons and economically inactive persons should be equal to the population figure). The results were also compared with the back estimates from the employment statistics and the national accounts. In addition, the data from the annual population statistics were combined and reconciled with the census, which used to be conducted every ten years and more recently every five years.
 

The time series generated were integrated into the database for Applied Economic Analysis and are to be made available to the public via the data pool.
 

Project duration: 2023–2024