The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased in July, following a decline in June. The index now stands at 110.98, up from 109.30 (a downward revision) in June. The increase marks a 1.3 percent gain in the ETI over the past 12 months.

"The Employment Trends Index increased in July but continues to hover around a flat trend since the summer of 2018," said Gad Levanon, Head of The Conference Board's Labor Market Institute. "In the second half of 2018, the Employment Trends Index started signaling a slowdown in job growth. So far this year, job growth has indeed slowed down compared to 2018, which is not surprising given the modest economic slowdown and the recruiting difficulties associated with a tight labor market. In the coming months, we expect job growth to remain solid, which will be enough to further tighten the labor market. Growing labor force participation rates will somewhat ease these hiring pressures."

July's increase was fueled by positive contributions from seven 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," Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Industrial Production, and Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry.

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)**

*Statistical imputation for the recent month
**Statistical imputation for two most recent months
Note: This month's Employment Trends Index reflects revisions to the Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales series.