The ETI indicator, which reflects employment trends, was developed for the US economy by the non-profit company Conference Board, Inc. in 2008, as an approximation of eight calculated indicators of the labor market.  The Conference Board is a research center established in 1916 on the basis of the independent association of American industrialists NICB, which eventually received the status of an international organization. It consists of 1,200 corporations interested in research and economic forecasts.

Employment Trends Index is compiled on the basis of our own surveys, statistical reports and calculated data:

  • Percentage of availability of new vacancies (surveys of the unemployed)
  • The level of social insurance claims against unemployment of the US Department of Labor
  • Percentage of companies with "hanging", unfilled vacancies during the month
  • Number of employees working on a temporary job
  • Number of part-time employees
  • Number of new vacancies
  • Labor productivity
  • Sales level and inventory

Output format of the ETI indicator

The indicator is not published in the economic calendar, its value can be tracked on the organization's website. The Conference Board publishes the ETI calculations until the end of the first decade of each month. The indicator is a relative value that is calculated in relation to the base year. The state of the labor market in 1973 was taken as 100, the current values of trends are three-digit, but bidders sometimes independently calculate their percentage change to the previous value.

The impact of the employment index on the Forex market

The US labor market has a key impact on dollar, which, in turn, determines the rates of national currencies and commodity markets. The American economy is the first in size, and gold and foreign exchange reserves and trade settlements are denominated in USD in a fairly high proportion.

Course currencies reacts to the values of three different indicators of the labor market:

  • Unemployment Rate Employment (Nonfarm Payrolls)
  • Number of initial applications for unemployment benefits

Traders also take into account the level of personal income/expenses and labor productivity. The ETI indicator predicts the resulting labor market indicator at the beginning of the month, which makes it possible to:

  • It is speculative to win back falls on the negative of one of the indicators in the expectation of a rapid recovery of the exchange rate, since the total the trend is positive
  • To form medium-term and long-term positions based on the fact that the state of the labor market is known in advance