Fed's Daly: Must watch both sides of mandate, situation feels precarious

  • Comments from the San Francisco Fed President
Mary Daly
Mary Daly
  • Low-hiring, low firing environment may persist or may quickly change to a no-hiring, more-firing labor market
  • Businesses are cautiously optimistic, workers are not so sure.

The signal here -- I think -- is that the Fed could pivot quickly.

The comments are from a short LinkedIn post. Here's the full text:

Is the economic outlook good or bad?

If you talk to businesses, they’re cautiously optimistic. Growth is good, consumer spending remains solid, jobs are easy to fill, and productivity gains are helping control costs.

Talking to workers, they’re not so sure. You can see this in the latest sentiment surveys, which show that Americans are expecting fewer jobs to be available and the unemployment rate to rise.

In many ways, this disconnect makes sense. We’ve been in a relatively low-hiring, low-firing environment for some time. That may persist, but workers are aware that things could change quickly, leaving them in a no-hiring, more-firing labor market. With inflation printing above the FOMC’s 2 percent goal, this rightly feels precarious.

What does this mean for policy? We must watch both sides of our mandate. Americans deserve both price stability and full employment, and we can’t take either for granted.
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