The Conference Board reports that its Employment Trends Index (ETI) increased in September, following a small decline the previous month. September’s ETI stood at 128.51, up from 127.96 in August. The change represents a 1.1-percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.
“The Employment Trends Index increased to 128.51 in September, despite a large decline in one component, NFIB, and suggests moderate job growth through the first quarter of 2017,” says Gad Levanon, chief economist, North America, at The Conference Board. “Despite the recent declines in corporate profits, employers are not showing any signs of reducing payrolls.”
In calculating its Employment Trends Index, The Conference Board aggregates eight labor-market indicators that it considers accurate in their own areas. Aggregating individual indicators into a composite index filters out “noise,” revealing underlying trends more clearly. The indicators come from the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve Board and other sources.
The Conference Board attributes September’s improvement in the ETI to positive results from seven of the eight components. In order from the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find “Jobs Hard to Get,” Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Job Openings and Industrial Production. Also included in the index is the Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, reported by the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation.