The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) rose to 128.28 in April from a downwardly revised 126.42 in March, and is up 2.1% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.
The March number was originally reported as 127.48.
"Despite the April bounce back in the Employment Trends Index, its growth has slowed in recent months, suggesting that job growth will also slow," said Gad Levanon, Managing Director of Macroeconomic and Labor Market Research at The Conference Board. "Employers have become more cautious as economic growth remains moderate and profits decline. Looking ahead, we anticipate job growth will remain below 200,000 a month."
The rise in ETI was driven by positive contributions from all eight components.
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).
