"The bounce back in the Employment Trends Index in October was one of the largest monthly increases ever, and comes after two declines because of the hurricanes," said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. "As expected, the ETI picked up and continued its strong upward trend, suggesting that employment growth will remain solid in the coming months."

October's increase in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions from all eight components. From the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Industrial Production, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, Consumer Confidence "Jobs Hard to Get" Percentage, and Job Openings.

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 "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)

• Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers (BLS)

• Job Openings (BLS)

• Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)

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