The Conference
Board (CB) announced on Monday its employment trends index (ETI) for the U.S.,
a leading composite indicator for employment, increased 0.2 per cent to 109.70 in
December 2024 from a downwardly revised 109.45 (from 109.55) in November 2024. This
marked the third straight monthly advance in the ETI, which lifted it to the highest
level since June 2024.
According to
the report, last month’s gain in the ETI was due to positive contributions from
5 of its 8 components, including Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All
Part-time Workers, Industrial Production, Percentage of Respondents Who Say
They Find “Jobs Hard to Get”, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, and Number of
Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry.
Commenting on
the latest data, Mitchell Barnes, Economist at The CB, noted that December data
highlights that the U.S. labour market continues on stable footing even after a
long period of normalization during the post-pandemic recovery. “High
employment and wage growth have continued to support strong consumer spending
and we expect labour demand to remain stable as businesses await an uncertain
policy and economic environment next year,” he added.