Employment Trends Index on the Rise: The Conference Board
The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI) rose to 109.55 in November from an upwardly revised 108.25 in October.
“The ETI rose again in November, marking consecutive monthly gains for the first time in 2024,” said Mitchell Barnes, economist at The Conference Board. “The increases in October and November add up to the largest two-month increase in the ETI since the torrid period of job gains in 2022 coming out of the pandemic.”
The ETI is a composite index for payroll employment. When the index rises, employment is likely to grow as well, and vice versa. Turning points in the index indicate a change in the trend of job gains or losses is about to occur in the coming months.
Rising sentiment among both jobseekers and businesses is contributing to ETI’s increases, The Conference Board noted. The share of consumers who report ‘jobs are hard to get’, an ETI component from the Consumer Confidence Survey, fell for the second consecutive month to 15.2% in November, down from 17.6% in October.
The share of firms reporting ‘jobs not able to fill right now’, another ETI component, has similarly risen for two straight months, while job openings have also rebounded from September, when opening hit a post-pandemic low.
“The improvement in ETI largely reflects November data on employment, turnover, and economic activity, which all came in on target,” said Barnes. “Looking ahead, we see more positive sentiment, perhaps benefiting from reduced policy and interest rate uncertainty, that could help maintain and bolster labor market strength into 2025.”
The increase in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from seven of its eight components, The Conference Board said, including percentage of respondents who say they find ‘jobs hard to get,’ real manufacturing and trade sales, initial claims for unemployment insurance, industrial production, ratio of involuntarily part-time to all part-time workers, percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now, and number of employees hired by the temporary-help industry.
