The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™(ETI) increased slightly in June to 100.0, up from May’s revised figure of 99.5. The June figure is up 5.4 percent from a year ago.

Says Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board: “The behavior of the Employment Trends Index in recent months is consistent with weak job growth, rather than an outright decline. The abysmal uptick in employment in the past two months is not just a reaction to the slowdown in economic activity in the first half of 2011, but also a result of employers becoming downbeat about their hiring needs in the coming months.”

This month’s increase in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from three out of the eight components. The improving indicators include Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, which is a forecasted component.

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:

- Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find “Jobs Hard to Get” (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey

- Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance (U.S. Department of Labor)

- Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now

- Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

- Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons (BLS)

- Job Openings (BLS)

- Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)

- Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)