ETI Continues to Show Rapid Improvement in August

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The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI) increased in August, after increasing in July. The index now stands at 134.62, up from 133.60 (a downward revision) in July. The change represents a 5.6% gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.

“The rapid growth in the Employment Trends Index continued in August, suggesting solid job growth in the months ahead,” said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. “While Friday’s job numbers were slightly disappointing, the ETI does not provide any indication of slowing employment growth.”

August’s increase in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions from six of the eight components. From the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find “Jobs Hard to Get,” Industrial Production, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, and Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry.

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.

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