Conference Board Employment Index

This is more of a note to my self. I was looking for a data series on consumer confidence but instead I found a conference board index for employment. However the trouble I have is that the of the eight indicators, only one is actual conference board original data, six come from the government and one a small business research foundation.

If all the variables are significant then a free, public index without the conference board data would be almost as good. One could guess the proper weights from regressing consumer spending on unemployment indicators. So, just where is the conference board value add. Shoot, I know jobs are hard to get. I don't need a survey.


The eight labor-market indicators aggregated into the Employment Trends Index include:

1) Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get" (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey®)

2) Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance (U.S. Department of Labor)

3) Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now (© National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation)

4) Number of Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

5) Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons (BLS)

6) Job Openings (BLS)

7) Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board)

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