The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) gained to 123.09 in October from an upwardly revised 121.91 in September, and is up 7.7% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.
The September number was originally reported as 121.68.
"The Employment Trends Index continues to increase rapidly, with all eight components improving in October," said Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "The index is signaling solid job growth through the winter. As a result, we could see the unemployment rate reach its natural rate of 5.5 percent by early Spring."
The gain 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).
