Indications From The Conference Board

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® improved further in June, following gains in each of the previous four months. The Index now stands at 127.3 (1985=100), up from 120.0 (an upward revision) in May. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—rose from 148.7 to 157.7. The Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—improved to 107.0, up from 100.9 last month. Join and listen to this podcast as Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators and Chief Economist Dana Peterson discuss consumers’ new optimism for the short-term – and how that will impact the economy going forward.

Join labor market experts from The Conference Board as they break down the monthly US Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. They provide insights on the monthly employment and unemployment numbers and identify key trends in the US job market that business leaders should know about.

In this podcast Frank Heemskerk (ERT), and Ilaria Maselli and Klaas de Vries (The Conference Board) discuss some of the insights from the report “Surging Confidence Among European Business Leaders Despite Strains on Supply Chains”. We start with the latest reading of the Measure of CEO Confidence™, and then discuss bottlenecks in sight, like strains on supply chains, shortages and trade tensions. We also look at the forecast for 2021 and 2022 and talk about why vaccination remains the key risk (or upside!) for the next six months. Click here to check out ERT's newly released podcast series: https://ert.eu/documents/ert-launches-podcast-series-21st-century-industrialists/

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® held steady in May, following a gain in April. The Index now stands at 117.2 (1985=100), down marginally from 117.5 in April. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—increased from 131.9 to 144.3. However, the Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—fell to 99.1 in May, down from 107.9 last month.  Join Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators and Chief Economist Dana Peterson as they discuss consumers’ waning optimism for the short-term.

Why did global consumer confidence reach record levels in Q1 2021? What does this mean for global growth, and what are the regional developments? More specifically, what have been trends in the US regarding health and wellness, spending on food, and investments? What can we expect in the near future? Join The Conference Board’s Chief Economist Dana Peterson and Senior Researcher Denise Dahlhoff as they discuss these and related questions. Learn how the lightening in moods among consumers globally bodes well for spending throughout the remainder of the year as economies continue to emerge from the pandemic-induced economic downturn and work towards arresting the spread of the coronavirus. As consumption is a significant contributor to growth among many mature economies, the positive consumer attitudes and behaviors at the start of the year support The Conference Board’s upwardly revised expectation of 5.2 percent real GDP growth for the global economy in 2021.

Join labor market experts from The Conference Board as they break down the monthly US Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. They provide insights on the monthly employment and unemployment numbers and identify key trends in the US job market that business leaders should know about.

Join us as we discuss the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on productivity in 2020, 2021 and beyond. See The Conference Board's latest multi-market projections and our new measure of productivity. Learn about new trends that may contribute to faster productivity growth ahead at the global total economy level. Discover which industries, including communications and health care, may be poised for a burst in productivity growth. Understand factors driving faster productivity growth over the long-run. For additional info please visit: https://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/

The just released Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® The Conference Board’s just released  Consumer Confidence Index® rose sharply again in April, following a substantial gain in March. The Index now stands at 121.7 (1985=100), up from 109.0 in March. Join Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators and Chief Economist Dana Peterson as they discuss consumers’ optimism, and what contributed to the highest index since February of 2020.

Our recent labor market research finds that wage gaps by race/ethnicity and gender remain large in the US and have actually increased over the last decade. In this podcast, experts from The Conference board will discuss: -How wage gaps differ among Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White workers and by gender. -How under-representation of some groups in high paying occupations/industries can help us understand existing gaps. -How companies can take a multi-pronged approach to address wage gaps internally, as well as support progress toward pay equity externally. -How to identify barriers to talent mobility and/or advancement to senior leadership and higher paid roles. -Why strong growth in the tech industry contributes to rising wage gaps for Black workers.

US employers added an astounding 916,000 jobs in March 2021. Employment has now doubled each month since the start of the year, marking a turning point in the economic recovery. There will likely be 4.5 million more jobs added to the economy this year, especially in in-person services, explains Frank Steemers, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. He adds that job gains will likely hover around 800,000 per month in the near term, and may even reach 1 million. Elizabeth Crofoot, CED’s Senior Economist, also discusses the potential job growth associated with the Biden Administration’s proposed infrastructure package. She notes that, if the infrastructure proposal were to become law, the economy would add about 15 million jobs over the next 8 to 10 years. Yet the plan itself may spur less than 3 million additional jobs on top of what would be generated without it.

The just released Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® surged in March to its highest reading in a year, after a modest increase in February. The Index now stands at 109.7 (1985=100), up from 90.4 in February. These numbers show the index has reached its highest level since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.   Join Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators and Chief Economist Dana Peterson as they discuss consumers’ optimism, and what might temper that outlook in the short term.

The just released Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®  improved again in February, after increasing in January. The Index now stands at 91.3 (1985=100), up from 88.9 in January. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—climbed from 85.5 to 92.0. However, the Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—fell marginally, from 91.2 last month to 90.8 in February.   The survey results did not fully capture the events surrounding the Texas power crisis nor the loosening of dining restrictions in NYC.   Join Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators and Conference Board Chief Economist Dana Peterson for this Indications podcast as they look at the current numbers -  and what they portend for the future of 2021.

Since 1999, The Conference Board CEO Challenge® survey has asked CEOs across the globe to identify the most critical issues they face and their strategies to meet them. Since 2017, the C-Suite Challenge has expanded the survey pool beyond CEOs to the entire C-suite. This year’s survey, conducted following the US elections in November 2020, asked CEOs and C-suite executives for their views on the external stress points they face and the strategies they will focus on to mitigate risk and seize opportunity as part of the post-COVID-19 recovery. In addition, the survey asked respondents for their views on the long-term impacts that will emerge from the pandemic. Join our economists as they discuss the implications of the survey findings on the outlook for the economic recovery in 2021 and the transformation of the economic and business landscape in the long term.

Despite a rebound from December’s job losses, employment gains in January were relatively small and likely overstated by seasonal factors. While there is much uncertainty about the next two to three months, the rollout of the vaccines will be the dominant force driving a strong employment recovery in the hardest hit industries, explains Gad Levanon, Vice President of Labor Markets at The Conference Board. He added that there will be a strong recovery in the second quarter and it will continue for the rest of the year. Elizabeth Crofoot, CED’s Senior Economist, also summarizes the ongoing debate around the appropriate size of the fiscal response. She noted that, in targeting full employment, it is important to find a balance between offsetting the risk of a slowing economy and concerns of inflationary pressures.  

On the 24th of December 2020, the UK and the EU reached an agreement on how to manage their relationship from January 1, 2021 onward. In this podcast Ilaria Maselli, Senior Economist Europe at The Conference Board and Andrew Tank, Executive Director, European Centers and Intn. HR Services at The Conference Board, discuss the economic and business implications of the deal: what are the hurdles for the manufacturing and the service sector? What is the outlook for the British economy in 2021? And what will the UK look like in a decade from now? In the short-term, drivers of economic growth will surely change in the UK. Supply chains will reorganize and the capacity of the country to attract European talent will diminish. For the long-term, three scenarios are presented: Fall Apart, Resilient Britain and Muddle Through. For a deeper dive into the topic, you can also download the full “Brexit: What’s Next” publication on The Conference Board website.  

After nearly a year of primarily working from home, a growing share of organizations expect remote work to become the new normal. But within the shift to remote work, no one story fits all. We discuss differences in remote work rates across demographics, occupations, industries, and geographies that have become even more apparent during the pandemic. We also discuss the implications of remote work for worker productivity, how organizations hire, and for employees’ quality of life.

The just released Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®  improved moderately in January 2021 after decreasing in December. While consumers appraisal of present-day conditions did weaken in January due to ongoing COVID concerns, their expectations for the economy and jobs advanced, suggesting that consumers foresee conditions improving soon. Join this podcast with Conference Board Chief Economist Dana Peterson and Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators to understand the story behind the numbers and what our experts foresee for the early months of 2021.

Join labor market experts from The Conference Board as they break down the monthly US Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. They provide insights on the monthly employment and unemployment numbers and identify key trends in the US job market that business leaders should know about.

Join labor market experts from The Conference Board as they break down the monthly US Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. They provide insights on the monthly employment and unemployment numbers and identify key trends in the US job market that business leaders should know about.

In this podcast Ilaria Maselli and Klaas de Vries discuss some of the insights from Conference Board research on how the European economy is doing. We start with the impact of the November lockdowns on the economy and then discuss two different scenarios for 2021. A key message is that the magnitude of the 2021 recovery can affect the entire decade. We also look at how different sectors of the economy are being affected by the COVID-19 crisis, and share results from the freshly released Conference Board Measure of CEO Confidence™, for Europe by the European Round Table for Industry.