The Conference Board’s US employment trends index rose in May to a reading of 128.60 from April’s downwardly revised reading of 128.10. The May reading is up 5.1% from the same month a year ago.  

“In the past six months, the employment trends index has been growing at a 3.5% annual rate, which is solid, but slower than the rates of the past two years,” said Gad Levanon, managing director of macroeconomic and labor market research at The Conference Board. “We therefore expect employment to grow by about 200,000 new jobs per month, rather than the spectacular 250,000-300,000 we experienced in 2014.”  

Levanon said job growth of about 200,000 per month will be sufficient to continue rapidly lowering the unemployment rate, given that the labor force is barely expanding.  

On Friday, the US Department of Labor reported the US added 280,000 jobs in May. The number of temp jobs had risen by 16,100.