Using Social Media to Measure Labor Market Flows

Dolan Antenucci, Michael Cafarella, Margaret Levenstein, Christopher Ré and Matthew Shapiro

No 20010, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Social media enable promising new approaches to measuring economic activity and analyzing economic behavior at high frequency and in real time using information independent from standard survey and administrative sources. This paper uses data from Twitter to create indexes of job loss, job search, and job posting. Signals are derived by counting job-related phrases in Tweets such as "lost my job." The social media indexes are constructed from the principal components of these signals. The University of Michigan Social Media Job Loss Index tracks initial claims for unemployment insurance at medium and high frequencies and predicts 15 to 20 percent of the variance of the prediction error of the consensus forecast for initial claims. The social media indexes provide real-time indicators of events such as Hurricane Sandy and the 2013 government shutdown. Comparing the job loss index with the search and posting indexes indicates that the Beveridge Curve has been shifting inward since 2011. The University of Michigan Social Media Job Loss index is update weekly and is available at http://econprediction.eecs.umich.edu/.

JEL-codes: C81 C82 E24 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-mac and nep-soc
Note: EFG LS ME PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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