While the labor market conditions remain tight and labor shortage is expected to continue from the long-term perspective, demand for saving labor and improving efficiency has increased, mainly in the nonmanufacturing sector that is labor intensive.
As monetary policymakers, we are primarily focused on the cyclical mattersmeaning how the pandemic and the measures taken to address it complicated accomplishing our dual-mandate objectives of maximum employment and stable prices. Making the best monetary policy decisions over the business cycle requires distinguishing between temporary effects and lasting, structural changes.