Employment Index Points To Cool in Hiring

In more news on the jobs front, the Employment Trends Index from The Conference Board increased to 96.7 in June, which the Kansas City Business Journal notes is the 11^th straight month the index has increased.

While the news seems a positive indicator, a director for the Conference Board said the numbers the last two months have been disappointing and suggest there has been a cooling in private-sector hiring.

“The weak growth in private-sector employment in the last two months has been disappointing given the robust recovery in production in recent quarters,” Gad Levanon, The Conference Board’s associate director of macroeconomic research, said in a release. “The moderate increase in the Employment Trends Index in the last two months suggests that many employers are now concerned that the recovery is losing momentum.”

June’s number was an improvement from May’s revised figure of  96.1 and was also up from the June 2009 figure of 88.1.

Eight labor-market indicators are measured in the Employment Trends Index and six of them improved in June.