The Conference Board Employment Trends Index Employment Trends Index is a leading composite index for employment. When the index increases, employment is likely to grow as well, and vice versa. Turning points in the index indicate that a turning point in the number of jobs is about to occur in the coming months.

"The ETI declined slightly in February, but remains quite high, with minimal changes over the past year," said Selcuk Eren, Senior Economist at The Conference Board.  "Job losses are concentrated in specific industries. Overall, the economy continues to add jobs in industries where labor shortages remain, and wage growth remains above its prepandemic rate.  We expect the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates two more times by 25 basis points each in order to bring wage growth and inflation under control. That will trigger job losses and increased unemployment in the second half of 2023 and early part of 2024."

Eren added: "The labor market remains tight although it has cooled down somewhat from a year ago. On the demand side, the job openings rate is still well above the prepandemic trend but is declining. On the supply side, the labor force continues to grow and reached 166.7 million in March, as a result of rising labor force participation and a rebound in immigration to its long-term trend. The labor-force participation rate for prime-age workers has climbed back to 83.1 percent—the same level as it was in February 2020.  We expect the economy will continue adding jobs in industries where employment has yet to fully recover from the pandemic, such as leisure and hospitality and government. Continued job growth is also likely in health care and social assistance, a reflection of our aging society.

"However, labor demand in other industries is cooling. Job growth in goods-producing industries—including manufacturing and construction—has been slowing and turned negative in March. Employment has also been stagnant in transportation and warehousing, as well as in finance and insurance. The information services industry, where most tech companies are listed, shed jobs compared to its highs in November. In the second quarter of 2023, we expect job gains in industries that are still adding jobs to offset losses in industries that have a negative outlook, resulting in continued slow job growth overall. However, in the second half of 2023, we expect job losses to become more widespread as GDP growth turns negative, with the unemployment rate likely to rise to 4.5 percent by early 2024."

March's decrease in the Employment Trends Index was driven by negative contributions from five of eight components: Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, Industrial Production, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, and Job Openings.

The Employment Trends Index aggregates eight leading indicators of employment, 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.