I've noticed that economists have been very accurate when it comes to predicting unemployment rates.
Most of their predictions usually fall within a 0.2% difference between their forecasts and the actual unemployment rate or are dead on what the employment rate is. I've looked at this site for information on the forecast vs the actual unemployment rate recently, which prompted me to ask this question.
- http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/unemployment-rate
- http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/unemployment-rate
- http://www.tradingeconomics.com/italy/unemployment-rate
Im aware of Okun's law and the cross country differences in terms of the measure of its coefficient. (see: http://unassumingeconomist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cross-country-evidence-on-okun-sep-2016-paris-workshop-draft-with-tables-and-charts.pdf)
But I am generally unaware of forecasting methods used by economists to predict unemployment rates.
What are some basic formulas or models used to forecast unemployment rates? Is there a pdf book anyone can recommend?