Employment Indicators

The Employment Indicators provide the following measures of employment using the WBES data:

  • Employment Share measures the share of the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment across selected firm characteristics (e.g., small versus large, manufacturing versus services, female-owned versus male-owned, etc.). It shows how the total aggregate employment in an economy’s private sector is distributed across these groups of firms.
  • Employment Expansion measures the annual rate of expansion of the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment. It takes firms that, on net, expanded their employment and computes the yearly growth rate in the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment.
  • Employment Contraction measures the annual rate of contraction of the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment. It takes firms that, on net, reduced their employment and computes the yearly rate of contraction in the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment.
  • Net Employment Change measures the annual rate of net change in the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment. It takes all firms and computes net change of the aggregate stock, i.e., employment expansion less employment contraction. Note that this indicator is different from the Annual Employment Growth, a performance indicator which measures average firm-level growth in permanent, full-time employment.

More details about the Employment Indicators are included in the database below, and discussed in Aga, Francis, and Rodriguez Meza (2015), which investigates what type of firms are key employers and which firm characteristics are related to faster rates of job creation or contraction. The authors used methods similar to Haltiwanger, Jarmin, and Miranda (2013) who, using U.S census data, identified common pitfalls in measuring the contribution to aggregate job creation and destruction by firms of various characteristics.

The Employment Indicators are continuously updated to include newly completed WBES.


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Download the Employment Indicators

Excel file

The Employment Indicators provide a snapshot of employment in the private sectorusing the WBES data. They include: employment share, employment expansion, employment contraction, and net employment change. 

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SMEs, Age, and Jobs: A Review of the Literature, Metrics, and Evidence

Aga, Francis, and Rodriguez Meza (2015)

The subject of which firms are the key employers is eminently important for academics and policy makers. This paper lays out the relevant definitions and metrics that are central to this topic, reviewing the main findings to date on the subject (with particular emphasis on results in developing economies). Findings include that (i) small and medium enterprises and older establishments are the dominant employers in the nonagricultural private sector labor force in developing economies, and (ii) net job creation is negatively correlated with establishment age and, although the effect of size is also negative, its significance is sensitive to the definition and methods used.

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