Conference Board Says Labor Market To Remain Strong Through Summer

An aggregation of labor market indicators released Monday jumped more than 6 percent from a year ago, suggesting that strong job growth is likely to continue through the summer. "While the strong labor market signals an improvement in economic growth, the key factor is that the average productivity of workers will need to rise as well," Gad Levanon of the Conference Board said. The report comes on the heels of a federal reading Friday that non-farm payrolls rose by 288,000 in June, while unemployment rate fell to 6.1% from 6.3% in May. The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index increased to 1119.62 in June, up from 119.03 in May. The index aggregates eight labor-market indicators, seven of which made positive contribution to its latest measure. The indicators range from the percentage of firms unable to fill job openings to survey respondents who say they find jobs are difficult to obtain. Others include manufacturing sales, industrial production and other factors. The sole indicator contributing negatively to the June index was job openings reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.