You didn’t hear this from the groundhog, but spring could bring weaker employment growth in Iowa. The Iowa Leading Indicators Index decreased 0.2 percent to 107.7 in December 2018 from a revised 107.9 in November. December’s decline was the third consecutive monthly decline in the index. The December report is preliminary and will be updated, however, because data on residential building permits was not available due to the partial federal government shutdown. Just two of the eight components of the index contributed positively in December — average weekly unemployment claims (inverted) and average manufacturing hours. With a 0.08 percent increase in December, Iowa’s non-farm employment index has experienced 14 consecutive months of positive growth. The negative annualized six-month ILII value and the six-month diffusion index at 25.0 suggest that employment growth may weaken during the spring.