The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased in September to 128.5, up from 128 in July. This 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,” said 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.”
September’s improvement in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions 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.
