The Conference
Board (CB) announced on Monday its employment trends index (ETI) for the U.S.,
a leading composite indicator for employment, edged up 0.1 per cent to 107.66 in
October from a downwardly revised 107.58 (from 108.48) in September.
According to
the report, last month’s uptick in the ETI was due to positive contributions
from 5 of its 8 components, including Percentage of Respondents Who Say They
Find “Jobs Hard to Get”, Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill
Right Now, Job Openings, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales and Ratio of
Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers.
Commenting on
the latest data, Mitchell Barnes, Economist at The CB, noted that the U.S. labour
market continues to cool from its rapid post-pandemic pace, but the ETI
suggests that this trend may be levelling out. “This comes at a time when we
expect business uncertainty to begin lifting, as the Federal Reserve’s rate
cuts start taking hold and uncertainty around the US election subsides,” he
added.