The Conference Board’s employment trends index slid to 96.7 in August from an upwardly revised 97.4 in July, and is 9.8% higher than the same month in 2009, the group said Tuesday. July ETI originally was reported at 97.0.
“Employment growth has been slow lately, and the employment trends index suggests that it may slow even further this fall,” said Gad Levanon, the board’s associate director of macroeconomic research. “However, we still expect job growth rather than an outright decline in the next several months.”
August’s decline in the ETI, the second in the past four months, was driven by negative contributions from seven out of the eight components.
The weakening indicators were: percentage of respondents who say they find jobs “hard to get,” initial claims for unemployment insurance, percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now, part-time workers for economic reasons, job openings, industrial production and real manufacturing and trade sales.
The last time seven components contributed negatively to the overall index was March 2009.
