The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased in March to 131.4, up from 131.1 in February (a downward revision), a 4.3 percent gain compared to March 2016.
“The Employment Trends Index continued to expand in March, suggesting that solid job growth will continue through the spring,” said Gad Levanon, chief economist, North America, at The Conference Board. “The surprisingly weak job growth in March is mostly noise in an otherwise healthy and tight labor market.”
March’s increase in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions from six of the eight components. In order from the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Industrial Production, Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find “Jobs Hard to Get,” Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, and Job Openings.