Seasonality of Employment in Poland and a Selected Countries of the European Union

Every economy is characterised by its variability over time. This variability may concern long, medium and short period of time. Scientific research usually concerns long- and medium-term changes, while changes occurring in economies in short periods of time are excluded or removed from analyses. This procedure seems to be unjustified, as only consideration of all fluctuations, including short-term, allows for full characterisation of researched phenomena. Similarly, phenomena on the labour market are subject to variability over time, while their short-term research seems to be particularly important. It results from the fact that variables of the labour market, i.e. employment, unemployment, remuneration, concern not only economic, but mainly social aspects. This paper aims at the analysis of diversity of seasonality of a number of employees in Poland and in selected countries of the European Union. One attempted to determine the value and trend of changes in the seasonality of employment and their distribution throughout a year. Analyses concerned the comparison of seasonal fluctuations of employment estimated for Poland with seasonal fluctuations of employment in selected EU countries, i.e. a group of highly developed European countries (France, Germany and Great Britain) and a group of countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and Lithuania). The study uses quarterly data on a number of employees in Poland and in selected EU countries for the period from the first quarter of 2008 to the fourth quarter of 2016 from EUROSTAT resources. The CENSUS X12 procedure based on seasonal ARIMA models was applied for the selection of a seasonal component. The obtained results indicate that the seasonality of employment in Poland and in selected EU countries was low. In a group of Western European countries, the seasonality of employment was characterised with lower average annual level than Poland. An average annual seasonality of employment in countries of Central and Eastern Europe was higher than the seasonality estimated for Poland. Distribution of fluctuations of seasonal employment throughout a year in Poland and in selected EU countries was similar in both analysed groups of countries. Peak to peak value of the seasonality of employment constituted a differentiating feature. Western European countries and Poland were characterised by a lower amplitude of fluctuations of the seasonality of employment throughout a year than countries of Central and Eastern Europe.