Conference Board ETI Dips to 107.82 in November

The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) slipped to 107.82 in November from a downwardly revised 107.84 in October, originally reported as 108.16, but is up 3.3% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.

"The Employment Trends Index remains weak and suggests that employment growth over the next several months is likely to slow again," said Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "Employment growth typically lags economic growth, and with the economy expected to decelerate in the current quarter and early 2013, a slowdown in employment won't be far behind."

The decrease in ETI was driven by a large negative contribution from initial claims for unemployment insurance, according to the Conference Board.

The ETI aggregates eight labor-market indicators, each of which has proven accurate in its own area. Aggregating individual indicators into a composite index filters out so-called "noise" to show underlying trends more clearly.

The eight labor-market indicators aggregated into the ETI include: Percentage of respondents who say they find "Jobs Hard to Get" (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey); Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance (U.S. Department of Labor); Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now (National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation); Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics); Part-time Workers for Economic Reasons (BLS); Job Openings (BLS); Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board); and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM BOND BUYER