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The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ Remains Unchanged in July

Aug. 10, 2009

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In July, The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ remained at the same level as the revised figures for May and June. The index stands at 88.3 and is down 20.1 percent from a year ago.

"The Employment Trends Index has been flat in the last three months," said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. "This suggests that we are getting closer to the point when employers are no longer cutting their workforce. However, since we are expecting a weak economic recovery, and given the record number of involuntary part-time workers – many of whom are likely to move to full-time positions before new employees are hired – we do not expect significant job growth over the next year."

This month, the components of the Employment Trends Index™ showed a mixed picture. The improving indicators were Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Industrial Production, Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.

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 so-called "noise" to show underlying trends more clearly.

The eight labor-market indicators aggregated into the Employment Trends Index™ include:

The Conference Board publishes the Employment Trends Index™ monthly, at 10 a.m. ET on the Monday that follows each Friday release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment situation report. The technical notes are included here.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE BOARD

The Conference Board is a global, independent business-membership and research association working in the public interest. Our mission is unique: To provide the world’s leading organizations with the practical knowledge they need to improve their performance AND better serve society. The Conference Board is a non-advocacy, not-for-profit entity holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in the United States.

THE CONFERENCE BOARD EMPLOYMENT TRENDS INDEX (ETI)™
Release Dates for 2009

Monday, August 10
*Tuesday, September 8
Monday, October 5
Monday, November 9
Monday, December 7

*Tuesday release due to Labor Day

For further information contact:
Gad Levanon
1 212 339 0317
gad.levanon@conference-board.org

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