The Fed is scheduled to release their labor market conditions index because of a dual mandate from Congress. This index is reported to go beyond looking at the unemployment rate and payroll jobs gains to provide a broad view of the labor market that the Fed watches for one of the two mandates, healthy job growth and low and stable inflation. This index at times can affect Fed policy according to Bloomberg.
The labor market conditions index summarizes a wide range of labor market indicators and Bloomberg notes that The Fed not only creates this index but also watches it for interpreting the health of the labor market.
The labor market conditions index is by definition an index, meaning higher index numbers are positives and vice versa. The report focuses on the change in the index how strong a plus change or a negative change. A plus indicates improving labor market conditions. But there is extreme detail with 19 components. Subcomponent detail can be important says Bloomberg, depending on how many components are positive versus those that are negative. A key feature of this report is that it pulls together many labor market indicators into one place.
The Fed will release this month’s index on Tuesday, September 6th.