Affiliation to Social Security during Business Cycle

The following graph shows the cross correlations of the cyclical component of the real GDP and the number of workers affiliated to social security for selected countries. The graph shows the correlation coefficient between the real GDP cyclical component and the contemporary, lagged and leading cycle series of the other variable. We see that when GDP grows formal employment grows. This is hardly a new or unexpected result, given that being affiliated to social security is very similar to be employed.