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Policy catch-up appears needed as U.S. Federal Reserves shift to job market risks is done [Video]

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Canadian Economy and Markets

In 2022, when the Federal Reserve’s focus shifted to combatting inflation, it had to ratchet up interest rates fast to get monetary policy caught up with fast-rising prices.

Two years later, the focus has changed again – this time to protecting the job market, as outlined in Chair Jerome Powell’s speech Friday at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference. A policy catch-up again appears to be needed – in the other direction, albeit at a likely less frantic speed.

Powell’s signal of coming rate cuts completed a Fed shift that began in January when it acknowledged emerging job market risks, and now it has made countering those its top job.

The open question: Are a weakening job market and rising unemployment rate evidence of an economy settling into a healthy place of steady growth with little upside risk to the jobless rate or part of a slide that will gather speed?

The answer will appear …

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