'Actual' versus 'virtual' employment in Belgium

This paper analyses the evolution of employment in the Belgian provinces during the period 1974-92. It identifies provincial, industrial and temporal effects. This allows us to construct a 'virtual' employment series by filtering out provincial effects. A comparison with actual employment provides a good indication of the employment performance of each province. Results show that (most) Flemish provinces are performing better than (most) Walloon provinces, which are themselves performing better than Brussels. The differences is marked mainly during upturns - Which indicates that Walloon unemployment is a problem of job creation during upturns rather than of job destruction during downturns. Sectors responsible for the performance of each province are also identified.