The Conference
Board (CB) announced on Monday its employment trends index (ETI) for the U.S.,
a leading composite indicator for employment, increased 0.5 per cent to 109.03 in
March from a downwardly revised 108.47 (from 108.56) in February.
According to
the report, last month’s gain in the ETI was due to positive contributions from
6 of its 8 components, including the Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All
Part-time Workers, the Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill
Right Now, Job Openings, the Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find “Jobs
Hard to Get”, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, and Industrial
Production.
Commenting on
the latest data, Mitchell Barnes, Economist at The CB, noted that the March ETI
reading preceded the April 2 tariff announcement and suggests that the U.S.
labour market remained healthy last month. “Over the course of 2025,
government layoffs and the implementation of new tariffs could raise the
unemployment rate from 4.2% in March to roughly 4.7%,” he warned.