Conference Board Employment Trends Index declines

The index now stands at 97.0, down from August's revised figure of 97.3. The index is up 9.3 percent from a year ago, but up just 0.6 percent from April.

Says Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board: "While continued slow job growth remains the most likely scenario over the next several months, The Conference Board ETI suggests that the likelihood of another episode of job losses is increasing. As employment lags changes in the economy, and with GDP growth forecasted to slow even further in early 2011, we may see negative job numbers next year."

This month's decline in the Employment Trends Index was driven by negative contributions from four out of the eight components. The weakening indicators included Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get," Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons and Job Openings.

The Employment Trends Index 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 Employment Trends Index 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)
• Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)

The Conference Board publishes the Employment Trends Index monthly, at 10 a.m. ET on the Monday that follows each Friday release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment situation report.