The Conference Board has released its latest Employment Trends Index (ETI), showing that employment edged higher in June, although there is some real concern here about the forward trends. The report may seem to echo the Labor Department’s unemployment report from last Friday, but there is much more to the employment report here. What is different about this report is that this is private sector data based on surveys for what lies ahead rather than merely looking at recent data after the fact. The ETI rose to 111.64 in June, after May was revised down to 111.59. What stands out is that the ETI June reading is 3.8% higher than it was a year ago.

The ETI grew more slowly than in the two prior quarters, and the current slowing of the ETI suggests that acceleration in employment growth is unlikely in the near future. Positive contributions came from four of the ETI’s eight components: industrial production, initial claims for unemployment insurance, number of temporary employees and real manufacturing and trade sales.

The Employment Trends Index uses an aggregate of data from eight labor market indicators, and it aims to filter out monthly noise to show underlying trends more clearly.

The full release can be seen here.

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