Wisconsin Unemployment Rate Forecast

T. Haavelmo Professor

This memo reports a 12-month forecast for the seasonally adjusted Wisconsin unemployment rate. In addition to point forecasts (the expected future value of the unemployment rate), the memo also reports 50% and 80% forecast intervals (probable ranges for future values).

The unemployment rate in June 2011 was 7.6%, a sharp increase from May, after staying roughly during the first months of 2011, following a steady fall during 2010.

The forecasts are summarized in Figure 1 and Table 1. The point forecast is for the unemployment rate to stay roughly constant for four months, and then decline slowly in 2012, dropping to 6.9% by June of 2012. The 80% forecast intervals show that there is considerable additional uncertainty. In particular, there is a possibility that the unemployment rate will continue to increase. There is also a significant probability that the unemployment rate will continue to fall, as low as 5.8% by June of 2012. The 50% forecast intervals refine this uncertainty, showing that it is unlikely that the unemployment rate will rise over 7.8%, and may indeed fall to as low as 6.0% within a year.

A 50% forecast interval is designed to contain the future unemployment rate with 50% probability. It is just as likely for the rate to fall in this interval as out of it. This is the smallest possible interval which has even odds of containing the future rate. We can think of this interval as “likely” to contain the future rate.

An 80% forecast interval is designed to contain the future unemployment rate with 80% probability. We can think of this interval as “highly likely” to contain the future rate. The 80% interval is designed so that there is a 10% chance that the future value will be smaller than the forecast interval, and a 10% chance that the future value will be larger than the forecast interval.

Figure 1: Wisconsin Unemployment Rate Forecasts

TABLE 1: Wisconsin Unemployment Rate Forecasts

	History	Point Forecast	50% Interval Forecast	80% Interval Forecast



2011:1	7.4%
2011:2	7.5%
2011:3	7.4%
2011:4	7.3%
2011:5	7.4%
2011:6	7.6%
2011:7		7.7%	(7.5%, 7.7%)	(7.5%, 7.8%)
2011:8		7.6%	(7.4%, 7.8%)	(7.3%, 7.9%)
2011:9		7.6%	(7.2%, 7.8%)	(7.1%, 8.0%)
2011:10		7.5%	(7.0%, 7.8%)	(6.8%, 8.1%)
2011:11		7.4%	(6.7%, 7.8%)	(6.6%, 8.2%)
2011:12		7.3%	(6.6%, 7.8%)	(6.4%, 8.2%)
2012:1		7.2%	(6.5%, 7.7%)	(6.3%, 8.1%)
2012:2		7.1%	(6.4%, 7.6%)	(6.3%, 8.1%)
2012:3		7.1%	(6.4%, 7.6%)	(6.2%, 8.1%)
2012:4		7.0%	(6.3%, 7.5%)	(6.1%, 8.0%)
2012:5		7.0%	(6.2%, 7.5%)	(6.0%, 8.1%)
2012:6		6.9%	(6.0%, 7.4%)	(5.8%, 8.1%)