The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) Declined Slightly in September

NEW YORK, Oct. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) declined slightly in September, following a larger drop in August. The index now stands at 132.74, slightly down from 132.78 (a strong downward revision) in August. The change represents a 3.8 percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.

"Several components that led to the decline in the Employment Trends Index in August and September were impacted by hurricanes Harvey and Irma," said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. "The Employment Trends Index is expected to pick up again, signaling further employment growth and more wage pressures in the months ahead."

September's small decline in the ETI was mostly the result of a large increase in the Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance component.

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 "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)
• Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers (BLS)
• Job Openings (BLS)**
• Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)*
• Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)**

*Statistical imputation for the recent month

**Statistical imputation for two most recent months

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: http://www.conference-board.org/data/eti.cfm.

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SOURCE The Conference Board

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