Friday’s shockingly robust jobs report for September shows the Federal Reserve may not need to deliver another supersized interest rate cut next month.
When the Fed slashed rates by half a point last month, the central bank’s leader, Jerome Powell, said in a news conference that decision was aimed to protect the labor market’s strength, since inflation has seemingly come under control.
Some economists deemed that a so-called “insurance cut.” In addition to stabilizing prices, the Fed is also mandated by Congress to promote maximum employment, and with price pressures now mostly tamed, central bankers are more focused on the health of America’s job market.
Since employers are still hiring at a solid pace and unemployment hasn’t continued to climb, after joblessness steadily picked up over the past year, that means Fed officials don’t need to take any more aggressive action to prevent the labor market from deteriorating. That just doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment, at least according to government data. A separate report out earlier this week showed that job openings unexpectedly rose in August, remaining above…
