Employment expectations by sectors

The employment expectations indicator (EEI) is a composite indicator produced by the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) of the European Commission. It summarises managers’ employment plans in the four surveyed business sectors (industry, services, retail trade, construction) and thus provides a timely indication of changes in expected dependent employment at Member states, EU and euro area levels. The indicator is constructed as a weighted average of the employment expectations of managers in all four surveyed business sectors. Once the weighted average of all four standardised balance series is computed, the resulting time-series is scaled to have a long-term mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10. Values greater than 100 indicate that managers’ employment expectations are high by historical standards, while the opposite holds true for values below 100. Assuming approximate normality, the imposed standard deviation of 10 implies that in about 68% of the cases the EEI will be within the range of 90 to 110. Data are seasonally adjusted (SA). Further details on the construction of the EEI can be found in the user guide of the Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys. Source: DG ECFIN