The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index, which is designed to predict the direction of the job market over the short term, has reached its highest point since at least 1973, the independent research organization said Monday in a monthly report. The October reading suggests more hiring, a shrinking unemployment rate, and rising wages over the next several months, according to the organization. The report comes hot on the heels of last week’s better-than-expected jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which showed jobs returning at a clip that put the U.S. economy on pace to recover all the jobs it lost in the pandemic by the middle of next year. The index’s latest reading underscores the power that workers currently enjoy in the job market. Businesses, which have been hiring aggressively to meet strong demand, have been raising wages in order to attract scarce job seekers and fill a near record number of open positions as the economy recovers from the pandemic. The Conference Board’s composite index doesn’t measure a single statistic, but instead combines eight different job market indicators into a single number meant to filter out the fluky variations that can make individual surveys, such as the BLS jobs report, move erratically. Have a question, comment, or story to share? You can reach Diccon at dhyatt@thebalance.com.
