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Solid Job Growth is Likely to Continue
The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI) increased in April. The index now stands at 118.00, up from 117.77 (an upward revision) in March. This represents a 5.5 percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.
“April’s increase in the Employment Trends Index, and continued improvement in recent months, is signaling solid job growth through the summer,” said Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research at The Conference Board. “Despite the disappointing GDP figure for the first quarter, job growth remains robust and when coupled with the massive retirement of baby boomers will result in a continued rapid decline in the unemployment rate.”
April’s increase in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from five of its eight components. In order from the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Number of Temporary Employees, Industrial Production, Job Openings, and Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance.
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:
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:
www.conference-board.org/data/eti.cfm.
Source: The Conference Board
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