Jobless recovery till December?

A key index shows that an economic recovery is having trouble gathering steam. It also hints that employment won’t edge up until the end of the year.

The nonprofit Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index fell slightly in August, down 0.1 percentage point from a revised July number. The index now stands at 88.1 and is down 18.5% from a year ago.

“The flatness of the (index) in recent months suggests that we won’t see job growth until the end of the year,” said Gad Levanon, the group’s senior economist. “The fact that the index cannot get off the ground is another sign of a weak recovery, perhaps a jobless one.”

Source: Conference Board