The Conference Board’s US employment trends index increased in December to a reading of 128.43, up from November’s reading of 127.83. The November reading is up 7.5 percent from the same month a year ago.

“The employment trends index increased in every single month of 2014, capping the year off with strong growth, 2.3 percent, in the final quarter,” said Gad Levanon, managing director of macroeconomic and labor market research at The Conference Board. “The strengthening in the ETI suggests that rapid job growth is likely to continue throughout the first half of 2015. And as the labor market tightens further, acceleration in wage growth is soon to follow.”

This month’s release incorporates annual revisions of standardization factors to the employment trends index, which bring it up to date with revisions in the source data. Also, with this benchmark revision, the base year of the composite index was changed to 2010 = 100 from 1996 = 100.