I thought the blank would have a word similar to prediction but did not see it. I went for POE. How would you solve this question?
Thank you so much for your time.
The right answer is precede.
Difficulty level - 2 out of 5
Thank you for the link but I did not find questions from Powerprep plus II in greg’s walkthrough.
I was not able to solve this but
looking at the answer “precede” it all made sense(I guess) 
.
So it goes like this - right part of the sentence says “economists were not able to predict rates”
so first part must say the same thing.
first part says “economist were unable to identify patterns which they can use to _____ employment”
so first sentence must say like “economist were unable to predict employment”.
predict means - we reasonably estimate something before it actually happens.
So they couldn’t identify a pattern that can give them a before-handed guess to employment.
I might be story telling , any other interpretations are welcomed please.
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thank you. 
this does make sense.
I did the same thing and hoped I was not telling a story.
Oh!, because you wrote in the tile PowerPrep II I thought it was from there.
I am sorry for the confusion. I edited it.