The Conference Board's employment trends index dipped to 107.28 in March from an upwardly revised 107.47 in February and is up 5.2% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.
"After five months of strong growth, the ETI declined slightly in March," said Gad Levanon, associate director of macroeconomic research at the board. "Together with the disappointing job growth released on Friday, and only moderate improvement in economic activity in recent months, it seems that employment growth in December to February, averaging almost 250,000 a month, may not be a sustainable trend."
The increase in the ETI was driven by negative contributions from percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now, percentage of respondents who say they find "jobs hard to get," and number of employees hired by the temporary-help industry.
