The unemployment rate remains more than 2 percentage points above what most FOMC participants see as its longer-run normal value, and other indicators – such as the labor force participation rate and the number of people working part time for economic reasons – confirm that labor force utilization remains at very low levels.
Further, the rate of improvement in the labor market has been painfully slow. I have noted on other occasions that the declines in unemployment we have seen would likely continue only if economic growth picked up to a rate above its longer-term trend.