Home › News › May 2017

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index Increased Sharply in April

Staff Report

Wednesday, May 10th, 2017

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased sharply in April, following an increase in March. The index now stands at 132.64, up from 131.58 (an upward revision) in March. The change represents a 4.1 percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.

"The Employment Trends Index has been expanding rapidly in 2017, suggesting that robust job growth will continue into the summer," said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. "A tight labor market is about to get much tighter, with solid employment growth occurring at a time when there is almost no growth in the working-age population."

April's increase in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions from seven of the eight components. In order from the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Industrial Production, Job Openings, Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, 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)**