Conference Board ETI Rises to 111.64 in June

The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) gained to 111.64 in June from a downwardly revised 111.59 in May, originally reported as 111.76, and is up 3.8% from a year ago, the group announced Tuesday.

"In the second quarter of 2013, the Employment Trends Index grew more slowly than in the previous two quarters," said Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "Even though employment has been growing faster than expected in recent months, the current slowing of the ETI suggests that acceleration in employment growth is unlikely in the near future."

The gain in ETI was driven by positive contributions from half of its eight components. The increasing indicators - from the largest positive contributor to the smallest - were industrial production, initial claims for unemployment insurance, number of temporary employees, and real manufacturing and trade sales, 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).

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