August’s ETI was influenced predominantly by negative contributions from six of its eight components. These included the percentage of respondents stating difficulties in finding jobs according to The Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey, as well as the recent figures on initial unemployment insurance claims documented by the US Department of Labor.

In August 2023, the US’ employment trends index (ETI) dropped to 113.02 from 114.71 in July 2023, signalling a dip in job market momentum, according to The Conference Board.
The dip was influenced by negative trends in six out of eight ETI components, including increased reports of ‘jobs hard to get’ and higher initial claims for unemployment insurance.

Furthermore, data from the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation revealed a significant number of firms presently unable to fill positions, coupled with the statistics on the number of employees recruited by the temporary-help industry from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Adding to these were the aspects of the ratio of involuntarily part-time workers to all part-time workers and real manufacturing and trade sales as reported by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The remaining components of the ETI, which did not register a negative trend, are the job openings detailed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the data on industrial production sourced from the Federal Reserve Board.

“The ETI ticked down in August and has been on an overall declining trend since March 2022,” said Selcuk Eren, senior economist at The Conference Board. “The index is still elevated, so job gains may continue over the coming months, but the rate of growth may lessen and eventually will switch to job losses.”

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)