he Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI) increased in July. The index now stands at 112.16, up from 111.67 (an upward revision) in June. The ETI figure for July is 4.1 percent higher than a year ago.

"The Employment Trends Index continues to grow moderately, suggesting no major changes are expected in the pace of job growth," said Gad Levanon, Director of Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. "With economic activity remaining weak through the second quarter, solid employment growth continues to be a positive surprise. Jobs may grow faster in the coming quarters as the U.S. economy is likely to get stronger towards the end of 2014."

July's improvement in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from seven of its eight components. The increasing indicators — from the largest positive contributor to the smallest — were Consumer Confidence Survey^® Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find "Jobs Hard to Get," Percentage of Firms With Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now, Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales, Number of Temporary Employees, Industrial Production, and Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers.

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.