Dudley, answering questions at a luncheon hosted by the United
Arab Emirates central bank in Abu Dhabi, also said recent U.S.
non-farm payrolls data had been very consistent with previous
releases, and had not changed his policy outlook in any meaningful
way.
"What I can tell you is that we are making progress toward our
objectives but there is considerable further progress still to go,"
he said. "I think the market expectations that expect us to lift off
sometime around the middle or somewhat later next year are
reasonable expectations.”
Dudley said, however, that he could not give the likely timing for
when the Fed would start raising interest rates, as it would depend
on how the U.S. economy was evolving and how financial markets were
reacting.
"No, I cannot give you more specifics and the long answer is:
because I do not know. It really depends on how the economy evolves
and how we progress toward our objectives of maximum sustainable
employment in the context of price stability.”
The government announced last Friday that U.S. employers added
214,000 new jobs to their payrolls last month, missing economists'
forecasts for 231,000.
“I think that the recent payroll employment data were very
consistent with the payroll data we have gotten for some time. We
have been having payroll gains that were somewhere north of 200,000
per month and that was another report like that, with some upward
revision to prior months," Dudley said.
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"It was probably a little stronger report when you also include what
was in the report in terms of the household employment survey. The
household employment survey also showed large gains in employment
and showed the leveling off of the labor force participation."
He added, "So I thought it was a decent report consistent with
recent reports. It did not really change my view of the outlook for
the U.S. economy in any meaningful way.”
In his luncheon speech earlier, Dudley said hiking interest rates
too early would pose "considerably greater" risks for the Federal
Reserve than moving too late.
(Reporting by Martin Dokoupil and Stanley Carvalho; Editing by
Andrew Torchia)
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