NEW YORK — The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)
fell again in March. The index now stands at 90.1, decreasing 2.3 percent from
the February revised figure of 92.2, and down 22.1 percent from a year ago.
“While we see a continued sharp fall in the ETI, the decline
was not as strong as in the previous four months, suggesting that the most
intense stage of job losses may be behind us,” said Gad Levanon, senior
economist at The Conference Board. “However, the drops in each of the eight
components of the ETI in March signal that many more jobs will disappear over
the next several months.”
The 20-month-long decline in the ETI is
seen in all eight of its components, most notably over the past six months in
temporary-help hires and part-time workers for economic reasons.
The ETI aggregates eight labor-market
indicators, each of which has proven accurate in its own area. Aggregating
individual indicators into a composite index filters out so-called “noise” to
show underlying trends more clearly.
The eight labor-market indicators aggregated into the ETI 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 (BLS))
· Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons (BLS)
· Job Openings (BLS)
· Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)
· Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of
Economic Analysis)
