The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) gained to 121.68 in September from an upwardly revised 121.32 in August, and is up 6.1% from a year ago, the group announced Monday.
The August number was originally reported as 121.29.
"The Employment Trends Index increased for the ninth consecutive month, signaling solid job growth through year end," said Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "A combination of positive and negative forces has been driving the rapid decline in the unemployment rate in recent years. Hiring is strong, but productivity growth is weak, and the participation rate continues to decline. None show signs of reversing."
The gain in ETI was driven by positive contributions from six of its eight components. The increasing indicators - from the largest positive contributor to the smallest - were industrial production, real manufacturing and trade sales, initial claims for unemployment insurance, ratio of involuntarily part-time to all part-time workers, number of temporary employees, and job openings, 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).
