Mon, 05 April 2021 | economy
On the heels of last week's strong job report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), The Conference Board reported strong gains in it's Employment Trends IndexTM(ETI), up almost 8 percent compared to a year ago.
On Friday, the BLS reported total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 916,000 in March, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.0 percent. These improvements in the labor market reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Job growth was widespread in March, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, public and private education, and construction.
Friday's report was echoed by The Conference Board reporting the ETI increased in March, after a small decrease in February. The index now stands at 102.44, up from 100.01 (a downward revision) in February. The index is currently up 7.7 percent from a year ago.
"The Employment Trends Index significantly increased in March and signals that job growth will be very strong over the coming months," said Gad Levanon, Head of The Conference Board Labor Markets Institute. "Despite the recent increase in infection rates, the vaccination campaign is progressing at a rate that should significantly reduce the spread of the virus in the next couple of months. Labor intensive in-person services will continue to reopen, and consumers flush with cash due to a year of elevated savings and strong government stimulus will be willing and able to spend. All this will lead to historically fast employment growth in the coming quarters. We expect the unemployment rate to reach about four percent a year from now, and further decline for the rest of 2022. Tight labor markets and labor shortages will resurface in the coming year, leading to faster wage growth."
March's increase was driven by positive contributions from seven of eight components. From the largest positive contributor to the smallest, the components were: Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get"; Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance; Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers; Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales; Industrial Production; Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now; and Job Openings.
The Employment Trends Index is a leading composite index for employment. Turning points in the index indicate that a turning point in the number of jobs is about to occur in the coming months. 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.
Source: BLS; The Conference Board