Measuring growth of labour quality and the quality-adjusted unemployment rate in Switzerland

Thomas Bolli and Mathias Zurlinden

Issue
2008-13

Pages
39

JEL classification
E24, J24, J31

Keywords
human capital, labour quality, unemployment rate

Year
2008

This paper presents results on human capital accumulation for the Swiss economy. We find that the index of labour quality has grown at a rate of 0.5% per year from 1991 to 2006. The main sources are the growth in average levels of education and the passing of the baby boom cohort through the age structure of the workforce. Projections over the period 2006-2050 suggest that labour quality growth will slow down with time. We also calculate a quality-adjusted unemployment rate and find that the unemployment rate is reduced by about 0.3 pp when human capital accumulation is taken into account.