The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ increased 0.3 percent from the revised August number, the first increase since January 2008. The index now stands at 88.5 and is down 15.6 percent from a year ago.

"While the employment numbers reported by the government last Friday were certainly disappointing, The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ suggests that the trend of declining job losses will continue," said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. "But the road to recovery is definitely going to be bumpy and may last unusually long, given the depth of the recession we have experienced."

This month’s increase in the Employment Trends Index™ was driven by a positive contribution from four out of the eight components. The improving indicators were Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, 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.

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 (© National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation)
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)