NEW YORK – The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index (ETI) rose to 98.1 in October from an upwardly revised 97.3 in September, originally reported as 97.0, and is up 10.1% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.
"The improvement in the ETI in October suggests that negative job growth in the next quarter or two is very unlikely," said Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "However, we forecast sluggish economic activity until mid 2011, at the earliest. Employment growth will likely remain weak in 2011."
October’s increase in the ETI, was driven by positive contributions from six out of the eight components. The improving indicators included Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Number of Temporary Employees, Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons, Job Openings, Industrial Production and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.
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).
