"The rapid improvement in the Employment Trends Index in recent months suggests that job growth is unlikely to slow down in the months ahead," said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. "The US economy has been significantly accelerating in recent quarters and the tax cuts passed by Congress will provide an additional boost to the US economy in 2018. In such an environment, job growth will remain solid and the unemployment rate will reach lower than any rate since the 1960s."

December's increase in the ETI was fueled by positive contributions from six out of the eight components. From the largest positive contributor to the smallest, these were: Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get," Industrial Production, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry, 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)