U.S. jobs report shows Fed no need to change ultra-loose monetary policy: official

2021-05-08 01:35:46 GMT2021-05-08 09:35:46(Beijing Time) Xinhua English

WASHINGTON, May 7 (Xinhua) -- The just-released U.S. jobs report in April showed that the U.S. Federal Reserve doesn't need to change its ultra-loose monetary policy, a senior U.S. Fed official said on Friday.

"Today's job report is just and example of - we have a long way to go," Neel Kashkari, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

"We need to rebuild this labor market and put them back to work. Then there will be plenty of time to normalize monetary policy," he said.

Kashkari's remarks came after the Labor Department reported earlier Friday that U.S. employers added 266,000 jobs in April, far fewer than economists' estimates of 1 million new jobs, with the unemployment rate little changed at 6.1 percent.

"I'm firmly in the camp of what we are doing right now is providing a lot of support. Once we've actually seen substantial further progress...that will be the time to consider changing it," Kashkari said.

The Fed has pledged to keep its benchmark interest rates unchanged at the record-low level of near zero, while continuing its asset purchase program at least at the current pace of 120 billion U.S. dollars per month until the economic recovery makes "substantial further progress."

"I don't see any reason right now to change something that is working and providing support to the financial system into the economy," Kashkari said.

Loretta Mester, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, also said Wednesday that more improvement in the U.S. labor market will be needed before the Fed's conditions will be met for tapering its asset purchase program. Enditem

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