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With the economy suffering, unemployment continues to rise. In March, 8.5 percent of the country was collecting jobless benefits. Another sign that finding work has become difficult for many is the fact that job listings online continue to decline.

According the Conference Board, which uses job listings to determine its Employment Trends Index (ETI), the ETI fell once again in March. In February the Index stood at 92.2 percent. Last month it dropped 2.3 percent to stand at 90.1 percent. Only a year ago, the ETI was 22.1 percent higher than it is now.

Despite the fact that the ETI continues to fall, some experts believe that the report may have actually shown that there is some improvement in the economy.

“While we see a continued sharp fall in the ETI, the decline was not as strong as in the previous four months, suggesting that the most intense stage job losses may be behind us,” said The Conference Board’s Senior Economist Gad Levanon in a recent press release. “However, the drops in each of the eight components of the ETI in March signal that many more jobs will disappear over the next several months.”

The Conference Board has seen a consistent decline in its ETI over the last 20 months, which ahs been marked in all of its 8 components. This decrease has been particularly significant over the course of the last six months. The most notable area that this has been in is the declining number of temporary help and part-time workers hired by employers for economic reasons.

In order to be able to remove non-significant findings, The Conference Board uses 8 different labor-market indicators, which have all been proven important markers in their own right. By using all of these indicators together, The Conference Board is able find out which underlying trends are most important.

The eight labor-market indicators utilized by The Conference Board are; the percentage of job seekers who respond that they are finding jobs are hard to come by (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey), initial claims for unemployment benefits (U.S. Department of Labor), the percentage of businesses that report having positions they are unable to fill at the moment (National Federation of Independent Business), the number of workers hired by the temporary-help industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), part-time workers hired by companies for reasons grounded in economics (BLS), current job listings and openings (BLS), Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board) and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).

The Conference Board releases its Employment Trend Index every month at 10 a.m on the Monday after the Bureau of Labors Statistics puts out its employment situation report. The report on April will be released on May 11th.

Labels: Job Listings, Jobs