With headline inflation remaining high and core inflation even increasing, our intention is to raise interest rates still further. My expectations are that the increase we intend for our March meeting will be followed by additional increases before we reach a level which will be sufficient to bring inflation back to the trajectory towards our goal of 2% inflation.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for December continued to show that the demand for workers remains robust, with job openings increasing by over 500,000 at the end of last year. Based on last Friday’s initial estimate, we learned that the U.S. economy created a whopping 517,000 jobs in January, 330,000 more than the solid growth that was expected by economic forecasters.