The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) decreased again in August to 100.8, down from July’s revised figure of 101. The August figure is up 4.1 percent from a year ago.

Says Gad Levanon, Associate Director of Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board: “While the Employment Trends Index has been on a slightly declining trend in recent months, the decline in the index is still not as strong as it was in the months leading to previous recessions. We still expect the economy to moderately add jobs in the next several months, but not fast enough to lower the unemployment rate.”

This month’s decrease in the ETI was driven by negative contributions from six out of the eight components. The weakening indicators include The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey®“Jobs Hard to Get,” Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance, Part-Time Workers for Economic Reasons, Job Openings, Industrial Production and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales.

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 so-called “noise” to show underlying trends more clearly.