Conference Board ETI gains to 133.77 in July

The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) rose to 133.77 in July from a downwardly revised 132.42 in June, first reported as 133.07, and is up 4.6% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.

"Those who have been following The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index are not surprised by the strong employment growth in June and July," said Gad Levanon, chief economist, North America, at The Conference Board. "In July, the rapid improvement in the index continued, suggesting solid hiring and further tightening of the labor market in the months ahead."

The gain in ETI was driven by positive contributions from all eight components.

The increasing indicators — from the largest contributor to the smallest — were percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now, ratio of involuntarily part-time to all part-time workers, industrial production, number of employees hired by the temporary-help industry, consumer confidence “jobs hard to get” percentage, real manufacturing and trade sales, job openings, and 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.

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