The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) increased in November for the second consecutive month. The index now stands at 99.0, up from October’s revised figure of 97.6. The index is up 9.3 percent from a year ago.

Says Gad Levanon, Associate Director, Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board: “The disappointing employment numbers released last Friday are at odds with most of the leading indicators included in the Employment Trends Index. While we are not expecting economic activity or employment to grow rapidly anytime soon, we do expect employment to continue to moderately increase, following the trend of recent months.”

This month’s increase in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from seven out of the eight components. The improving indicators included Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Number of Temporary Employees, Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons, Job Openings, Industrial Production 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.