Following up last Friday’s jobs report, the US employment trends index (ETI) per Conference Board dipped in January to 109.38 from 109.47 in December of last year. The index stands 2.7% higher vs. a year ago. The Conference Board stated that the ETI implies moderate improvement in labor market conditions. but the pace of more recent improvements in hiring may last for coming months. Jan’s ETI dip was driven by 6 out of 8 index components, led by percent of consumers who said jobs were hard to get. On an interesting note, Friday’s January jobs data showed payrolls averaged a revised 181K per month last year vs. a rough 150K clip before BLS revisions. Pace of hiring picked up to 200K monthly in 2012?s final quarter, from about 150K in Q3.