The Conference Board Employment Trends Index declined further in November. The index fell to 102.9, down 1.6% from the October revised figure of 104.5, and down over 13% from a year ago.
“Thus far, the U.S. economy has lost 1.9 million jobs and the declines in the ETI suggest job losses could very well surpass 3 million by mid 2009,”said Gad Levanon, senior economist at The Conference Board. “The continued deterioration in the labor market will exert significant downward pressure on wages.”
The 16-month long decline in the Employment Trends Index is seen in all eight of its components, most notably over the past six months in temporary-help hires and part-time workers for economic reasons, said Levanon.
The Employment Trends Index aggregates eight labor-market indicatorsa. Aggregating individual indicators into a composite index filters out so-called “noise”to show underlying trends more clearly, according to The Conference Board. 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)
- 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)
