The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) Increased in October

But its six-month growth rate remains under 1 percent for the third straight month

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Nov 05, 2012, 10:00 ET

NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) increased in October, following a decline in September. The index now stands at 108.16, up from 107.63 (a downward revision) in September. The October figure is 4.6 percent higher than a year ago.

"The Employment Trends Index bounced back in October, but only to the levels of July and August," said Gad Levanon, Director of Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "This is still a weak signal. And given the recent sluggishness of economic activity, employment growth is poised to remain slow in the coming months as well."

October's rise in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from six of its eight components. The improving indicators — from the largest positive contributor to the smallest — were Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get," Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Number of Temporary Employees, Industrial Production, and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.

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)

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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Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ 2012-2013 Publication Schedule

Index Release Date (10 AM ET)	Data for the Month

Monday, December 10, 2012	November
Monday, January 7	December
Monday, February 4	January
Monday, March 11	February
Monday, April 8	March
Monday, May 6	April
Monday, June 10	May
Tuesday, July 9*	June
Monday, August 5	July
Monday, September 9	August
Monday, October 7	September
Monday, November 4	October
Monday, December 9	November

* Tuesday release due to holiday