The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) Decreased in April

News provided by

May 06, 2024, 10:00 ET

Index Signals Job Growth Will Stall in the Second Half of 2024

NEW YORK, May 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) decreased in April to 111.25, from a downwardly revised 112.16 in March. The 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 change in the trend of job gains or losses is about to occur in the coming months.

"The ETI fell in April, a sign that employment growth could stall in the second half of 2024," said Will Baltrus, Associate Economist at The Conference Board. "The ETI has been on a downward trajectory since its peak in March 2022, and this month signals a continuation of that trend. However, the Index remains historically elevated and is still above its prepandemic level, which suggests aggregate job losses are less likely than a slowdown in employment growth."

Baltrus added: "April payrolls data showed an increase in employment (+175,000) for the 39^th consecutive month. However, between the decrease in the topline number and the narrowing of job gains across sectors relative to recent months, the labor market is beginning to show signs of cooling following a period of very strong growth since the pandemic recession. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that substantial job losses will occur over the coming months, as employers are still facing labor shortages. In April, the Percentage of Firms with Jobs Not Able to Fill Right Now—a component of the ETI—ticked up to 40% and remains elevated compared to prepandemic levels.

"Despite labor shortages for some firms, many other firms are not looking to hire, but are also not letting workers go, which is known as 'labor hoarding'. Shortages and hoarding are keeping the unemployment rate low and wages sticky. Sticky wages along with elevated interest rates are raising the cost of doing business for many companies. These factors may play into employer decisions to hire more workers, but we posit that slowing consumer demand for goods and services ahead will be the primary driver of slower growth and an uptick in the unemployment rate ahead. Consumers may be becoming concerned about these dynamics as the number of consumers who said jobs were hard to get in our Consumer Confidence Survey^® —another ETI component — increased."

April's decrease in the Employment Trends Index was driven by negative contributions from three of its eight components: Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get," Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, and Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry.

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.

The eight leading indicators of employment 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)**

*Statistical imputation for the recent month
**Statistical imputation for two most recent months

The Conference Board publishes the Employment Trends Index monthly, at 10 a.m. ET, on the Monday that follows each Friday release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation report. The technical notes to this series are available on The Conference Board website: http://www.conference-board.org/data/eti.cfm.

About The Conference Board
The Conference Board is the member-driven think tank that delivers trusted insights for what's ahead. Founded in 1916, we are a non-partisan, not-for-profit entity holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in the United States. www.conference-board.org.

Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ 2024 Publication Schedule
Index Release Date (10 AM ET)	Data for the Month
Monday, January 8, 2024	December 2023
Monday, February 5	January 2024
Monday, March 11	February
Monday, April 8	March
Monday, May 6	April
Monday, June 10	May
Monday, July 8	June
Monday, August 5	July
Monday, September 9	August
Monday, October 7	September
Monday, November 4	October
Monday, December 9	November

© The Conference Board 2024. All data contained in this table are protected by United States and international copyright laws. The data displayed are provided for informational purposes only and may only be accessed, reviewed, and/or used in accordance with, and the permission of, The Conference Board consistent with a subscriber or license agreement and the Terms of Use displayed on our website at www.conference-board.org. The data and analysis contained herein may not be used, redistributed, published, or posted by any means without express written permission from The Conference Board.

All material on Our Sites are protected by United States and international copyright laws. You must abide by all copyright notices and restrictions contained in Our Sites. You may not reproduce, distribute (in any form including over any local area or other network or service), display, perform, create derivative works of, sell, license, extract for use in a database, or otherwise use any materials (including computer programs and other code) on Our Sites ("Site Material"), except that you may download Site Material in the form of one machine readable copy that you will use only for personal, noncommercial purposes, and only if you do not alter Site Material or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice displayed on the Site Material. If you are a subscriber to any of the services offered on Our Sites, you may be permitted to use Site Material, according to the terms of your subscription agreement.

TRADEMARKS

"THE CONFERENCE BOARD," the TORCH LOGO, "THE CONFERENCE BOARD EMPLOYMENT TRENDS INDEX," and any other logos, indicia and trademarks featured on Our Sites are trademarks owned by The Conference Board, Inc. in the United States and other countries ("Our Trademarks"). You may not use Our Trademarks in connection with any product or service that does not belong to us nor in any manner that is likely to cause confusion among users about whether we are the source, sponsor, or endorser of the product or service, nor in any manner that disparages or discredits us.

Violators of these rights will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Nothing herein shall restrict the use of the information by news journalists using the information in a legitimate news publication or periodical.

SOURCE The Conference Board