The Conference Board’s employment index released Monday looks strong on the surface but a lack of momentum in the index suggests that the torrid pace of U.S. job gains in the fourth quarter is unlikely to continue, said the economist in charge of the report.
The Conference Board’s employment trends index rebounded in December after a sharp fall in the prior month, with the index rising to 129.33 from 128.27 in November.
“The slowdown in the employment trends index in recent months, combined with weak GDP growth in the fourth quarter, suggests that the pace of job growth is likely to slow in the coming months,†said Gad Levanon, managing director of macroeconomic and labor market research at the Conference Board, in a statement accompanying the data.
The employment trends index aggregates eight different variables into a composite index to filter out “noise†in the data.
