Job gains may continue over the coming months, but job losses may be on the horizon, data from The Conference Board Employment Trends Index suggests.

“The Employment Trends Index ticked down in August and has been on an overall declining trend since March 2022,” Selcuk Eren, senior economist at The Conference Board, said in a press statement. “The index is still elevated, so job gains may continue over the coming months, but the rate of growth may lessen and eventually will switch to job losses.”

Some industries are already shedding jobs, including information services, transportation and warehousing, Eren noted. Temp jobs have also fallen.

“The number of employees working in temporary help services, an important early indicator for hiring in other industries, has declined steadily since it peaked in March 2022,” he said. “While still elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels, job openings — an indicator of opportunities available to workers — are declining rapidly.”

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index declined in August to a reading of 113.02 from a downwardly revised 114.71 in July.

Still, despite softening in the labor market, wage growth remains elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels and continues to stoke concerns about contributing to underlying consumer inflation, Eren said.

“Consequently, the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates at least one more time before the end of 2023. We expect the Fed’s monetary policy tightening will trigger job losses in early 2024 and increase the unemployment rate,” he said.

August’s decrease in the Employment Trends Index was driven by negative contributions from six of its eight components. The percentage of respondents who said they find “jobs hard to get” was the largest negative contributor, followed by ratio of involuntarily part-time to all part-time workers, percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now, number of employees hired by the temporary-help industry, initial claims for unemployment insurance, and real manufacturing and trade sales.

The Employment Trends Index aggregates eight leading indicators of employment; when the index increases, employment is likely to grow as well and vice versa.