Conference Board ETI Dips 0.1% in August

The Conference Board’s employment trends index fell 0.1% to 88.1 in August, down from 88.2 in July and from 18.5% from a year ago, the group announced yesterday.

“The flatness of the employment trends index in recent months suggests that we won’t see job growth until the end of the year,” said Gad Levanon, the board’s senior economist. “The fact that the index cannot get off the ground is another sign of a weak recovery, perhaps a jobless one.”

Once again, in August, the components of the ETI showed a mixed picture, according to the Conference Board.

The improving indicators were a percentage of respondents from the board’s consumer confidence survey who say they find “jobs hard to get,” a percentage of firms with positions they are not currently able to fill, industrial production, and real manufacturing and trade sales.

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