For Exercises 13.46 to 13.49, see pages 693–694; for 13.50, see page 699; and for 13.51 and 13.52, see pages 705–706.

Question 13.46

13.46 Information services hires rate.

The U.S. Department of Labor tracks hiring activity in various industry sectors. Consider monthly data on the hires rate (%) in the information services sector from January 2009 through June 2014.27 “Hires rate” is defined as the number of hires during the month divided by the number of employees who worked during or received pay for the pay period.

  1. Use software to make a time plot of the hires rate time series. Describe the basic features of the time series. Be sure to comment on whether a trend or significant shifts are present or not in the series.
  2. Calculate 1-month, 2-month, 3-month, and 4-month moving-average forecasts for the hires rate time series.

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  3. Compute the residuals for the 1-month, 2-month, 3-month, and 4-month moving-average models fitted in part (b). (Note: Given the different spans, you will find a different number of residuals for each of the models.)

hires