The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index – which forecasts employment for the next 6 months declined with the author’s saying “despite the June decline in the Employment Trends Index, job growth will remain strong in the coming months“.

Analyst Opinion of Conference Board’s Employment Index

Econintersect evaluates 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 declined significantly from last month. However, looking at this index another way – the current rate of growth is about mid-stream of the rates of growth seen since the end of the Great Recession.

Econintersect is forecasting modest improvement to the growth rate six months from now. Note that the Econintersect Employment Index is not based on employment data.

From the Conference Board:

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) decreased in June, following an increase in May. The index now stands at 133.07, down slightly from 133.32 (a downward revision) in May. The change represents a 4.6 percent gain in the ETI compared to a year ago.

“Despite the June decline in the Employment Trends Index, job growth will remain strong in the coming months. The decline is small and comes after a series of large increases since early 2017,” said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. “Further job growth in the coming months will continue to tighten the labor market, and will likely result in further wage acceleration later this year.”

June’s decrease in the ETI was fueled by negative contributions from three of the eight components. In order from the largest negative contributor to the smallest, these were: Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, and Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance.