Dow Jones Newswires (02/06/12) Javier David

The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index found U.S. companies appeared to step up hiring efforts in January. The ETI rose 0.73% in January to 105.81, up from December’s revised figure of 105.04 and up 5.9% from the same period last year.

Despite the ETI rising for four consecutive months, the Conference Board expressed some caution. “We expect sluggish growth in economic activity in the first half of 2012 and therefore we do not foresee the strengthening of the labor market to be sustained in the second quarter of 2012,” even though job growth currently seems more robust, says Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research at the Conference Board.