Outlook: US jobs in powerful recovery

WASHINGTON: The US labour market is in a powerful recovery, with jobs increasing fast enough to keep the unemployment rate steady around 5%, said Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer on Friday. Speaking after the release of the solid October employment report, which showed the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.9%, Fischer said he believes the economy is nearly at full employment and will continue to grow at a moderate pace. The employment and growth outlooks are key factors in whether the US central bank increases the benchmark interest rate next month, after policymakers decided to stand pat in their meeting this week. However, in his remarks to an International Monetary Fund economics conference, Fischer gave no real hints about whether the Fed would move at its December 13-14 meeting, a year after the first and only post-crisis rate increase.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2016.

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