The US Conference Board Employment Trends Index rose in January for the fifth consecutive month. The index now stands at 93.2, up 1% from December's 92.3, but still down 0.7% compared to January 2009. The trend points to the resumption of jobs growth soon.

"The continued rise in the ETI makes us more optimistic that job growth will resume in the first quarter of 2010," said Gad Levanon of the New York-based private research group, the Conference Board, on Monday. "The improvement is widespread across all eight components. In particular, Friday's large decline in the number of involuntary part-time workers was the first time this component showed a strong signal of improvement."

January's rise in the ETI was driven by positive contributions from six of its eight components: Percentage of respondents who say they find "Jobs Hard to Get," Number of temporary employees, Part-time workers for economic reasons, Job openings, Industrial production, and Real manufacturing and trade sales.

The Employment Trends Index aggregates eight labour-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.

The eight labour-market indicators aggregated into the Employment Trends Index include:

• Percentage of respondents who say they find "Jobs Hard to Get" (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey)

• Initial claims for unemployment insurance (US Department of Labor)

• Percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now (National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation)

• Number of employees hired by the temporary-help industry (US Bureau of Labor Statistics)

• Part-time workers for economic reasons (BLS)

• Job openings (BLS)

• Industrial production (Federal Reserve)

• Real manufacturing and trade sales (US Bureau of Economic Analysis)

Last month’s drop in nonfarm payrolls of 20,000, followed a revised 150,000 decrease in December and a 64,000 gain in November, according to Labor Department figures issued on Friday, Feb 5th. The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 9.7% from 10%.

Morgan Stanley economist, Richard Berner, said last month that aggressive cuts to payrolls over the past two years have set the stage for a solid rebound, despite only moderate economic growth.  What were minimal hiring excesses are long gone, and a growing economy has produced a hiring deficit.  While there are several factors that will mute the hiring recovery, this pent-up demand will overwhelm them.

Insight on the US economy and employment on Friday, Feb 5th, with Robert Doll, BlackRock; Larry Kantor, Barclays Capital; David Rosenberg, Gluskin Sheff & Associates; and CNBC's Steve Liesman, Tyler Mathisen & David Faber: