The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased slightly in January to 130, after declining to 129.7 in December. This represents a 2.4 percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.
“The continued growth in the Employment Trends Index suggests that job growth will remain solid and perhaps even accelerate in early 2017,” said Gad Levanon, chief economist, North America, at The Conference Board. “In both business confidence surveys and hard data, it appears that businesses are becoming more optimistic and are more willing to expand their workforce.”
January’s increase in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions from six of the eight components. In order from the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find “Jobs Hard to Get,” Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Industrial Production, Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.
