The indicator reports on four employment measures: job expectations, job vacancies, new-hire compensation and recruitment difficulty. The LINE employment expectations index provides an early indication of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) numbers, released five weeks later.
Manufacturing Sector:
The LINE index of manufacturing-employment expectations forecasts a significant drop in hiring for September 2007 (31.4) compared to September 2006 (46.9 percent). Employers reported a drop in the exempt-employment vacancy index for August, the month leading into the September forecast -13.6 during August 2007 versus 14.9 in August 2006.
The non-exempt employment vacancy index also fell, to 17.0 in August 2007 from 22.4 in August 2006. Compared to a year ago, there was a substantial decrease in the recruiting difficulty index -19.6 in August 2007 versus 24.8 in August 2006. The new-hire compensation index for August 2007 dropped to 9.5 from 10.7 in August 2006.
Service Sector:
The LINE index of service-sector employment expectations forecasts slightly stronger growth for September 2007 (44.2) compared with September 2006 (41.4). The exempt vacancy index jumped from 7.3 in August 2006 to 28.0 during August 2007 while the non-exempt vacancy index fell from 30.6 in August 2006 to 25.6 during August 2007. The recruiting difficulty index is well below that of a year ago -12.4 in August 2007 compared with 21.0 in August 2006. The new-hire compensation index was relatively unchanged from a year ago, dropping slightly to 10.2 in August 2007 from 10.6 in August 2006.
