The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index - which forecasts employment for the next 6 months declined with the authors saying it is "In the current state of the labor market, a flat index is consistent with an ongoing labor market expansion. We expect job growth to remain solid and the labor market to continue tightening".
Analyst Opinion of Conference Board's Employment Index
Econintersect evaluates the year-over-year change of this index (which is different than the headline view) - as we do with our own employment index. The year-over-year index growth rate decelerated by 1.5 % month-over-month and down by 1.2 % year-over-year. The Econintersect employment index improved. Both of these indices are predicting soft job growth 6 months from now.
From the Conference Board:
The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) declined in December, following an increase in November. The index now stands at 109.68, down from 110.51 (an upward revision) in November. The decrease marks a 1.2 percent decline in the ETI over the past 12 months.
"The Employment Trends Index decreased in December and continues to be on a flat trend since the summer of 2018. In the current state of the labor market, a flat index is consistent with an ongoing labor market expansion. We expect job growth to remain solid and the labor market to continue tightening," said Gad Levanon, Head of The Conference Board Labor Markets Institute. "In Friday's job report, the broadest measure of labor market slack, known as the U6 rate, fell to 6.7 percent, the lowest level on record. Such a tight labor market is a growing obstacle for further economic growth, but not a big enough obstacle to derail the US economy from its two percent growth trajectory."
December's decline was fueled by negative contributions from five of the eight components. From the largest negative contributor to the smallest, these were: Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, the Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, the Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get," Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, and Job Openings.
(Click on image to enlarge)
To add context to this index, the following graph compares BLS non-farm payrolls, the Econintersect Employment Index, and The Conference Board ETI. Econintersect uses non-labor and mostly non-monetary economic pulse points in constructing its index, while The Conference Board uses mostly elements of employment data.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The graph above offsets the Conference Board ETI by 6 months. Note that the Conference Board is currently projecting a relatively unchanged growth rate (and the Econintersect index is forecasting an improving rate of growth six months from now.
Caveats on the Employment Indices
According to the Conference Board:
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:
- Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get" (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey
- Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance (U.S. Department of Labor)
- Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now (© National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation)
- Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons (BLS)
- Job Openings (BLS)
- Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)
- Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)
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