The Conference Board Employment Trends Index Increases In March

April 7, 2014

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased in March.  The index now stands at 117.52, up from 117.01 (an upward revision) in February.  This represents a 5.1 percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.

"The increase in the Employment Trends Index in the first quarter is signaling solid job growth in the coming months," said Gad Levanon, Director of Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board.  "With GDP forecasted to average 2.5 to 3.0 percent through the end of this year, there is little reason to expect employment growth to slow any time soon."

March's increase in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from four of its eight components.  In order from the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Industrial Production, Number of Temporary Employees, and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.

The Employment Trends Index aggregates eight labor-market indicators, each of which has proven accurate in its own area.  Aggregating individual indicators into a composite index filters out "noise" to show underlying trends more clearly.

The eight labor-market indicators aggregated into the Employment Trends Index include:

• Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get" (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey)
• Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance (U.S. Department of Labor)
• Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now (National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation)
• Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers (BLS)
• Job Openings (BLS)
• Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)
• Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)

Source: The Conference Board