The Conference Board Employment Trends Index Improves Sharply in December

Gad Levanon

"Given the sharp and widespread improvement in the Employment Trends Index in recent months, it is very likely that we will see at least some job growth during the first quarter," said Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "Despite the disappointing job report last Friday, the relatively strong economic recovery in the second half of 2009 suggests that the employment trend should reach a turning point in the very near future."

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. The technical notes to this series are available on The Conference Board website

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