After continuous increases in the Employment Trends Index in May, June, July and August, there has been another increase in the month of September. The index has upgraded from 53.30 in August to 54.80 in the revision in September. The Head of the Conference Board of Labors Markets Institute says, “The Employment Trends Index, increased again in September, but over the last two months its gains have been more modest, indicating that job growth may be slowing down. The labor market has rebounded better than expected, but with the virus still proliferating, it will not be able to return to its full capacity any time soon. Many companies are restructuring their organizations and layoff rates are high. Despite the US economy growing more slowly, it may still be able to generate a million new jobs by year’s end.
The eight contributing factors to last month’s increase in the index are as follows-
- The ratio of Involuntary part-time to All part-time workers
- Initial claims for Unemployment insurance
- The percentage of respondents who say they find ‘jobs hard to get’
- Real Manufacturing and trade sales
- The percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now
- Job openings
- The number of employees hired by the Temporary-Help industry
- Industrial Production
The Employment Trends Index is released every month by the Conference Board at 10 a.m. ET on the first Monday of the month. Other than this they have Friday releases of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation report.