She made the comments during a speech at the Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers in Wyoming in August.
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Utilities, which benefit from low interest rates, were up 1.2 percent, the best performing of the 10 major S&P sectors. USA crude was last up $1.27, or 2.94 per cent, at $44.43 per barrel.
US employers slowed their hiring in August and barely raised wages.
“Job creation numbers were not bad, but 113,000 of these were part-time positions”, Hicks said.
This is a sharp turnaround from last month, when total non-farm payroll employment increased by 255,000 in July, far above what experts predicted. But Yellen and other officials have contended for some time that the labor market is close to full employment, and as such they consider an increase of 100,000 jobs sufficient.
151,000 jobs added in August vs est.
It was also a smaller rise than the average monthly increase of 204,000 seen during the previous 12 months.
Over the last several years, the government’s August payrolls estimates have been weak prior to upward revisions.
“As the August numbers have tended to come in on the softer side in the past, we think that this mostly reflects seasonal adjustment problems rather than underlying weakness”, said Harm Bandholz, chief economist at UniCredit Research in NY. “There was positive growth in payrolls, but there’s just no wage pressure…the economy is in slow-growth mode”, North said.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.1 percent from a month earlier to $25.73, following a 0.3 percent increase in the prior month.
Since the start of the year, the improvement in the job market has outpaced the performance of the broader economy, which has averaged a disappointing annual growth rate of less than 1 percent. Since the gauge reached a record in mid-August, it’s been stuck in neutral amid Fed rate-hike speculation and lackluster economic data, including a reading yesterday showing manufacturing activity contracted last month.
The Federal Open Market Committee has gradually raised the target range for that key rate since December from historically low levels and has said that more rate hikes will be appropriate over time, although it has conditioned such action on continued moderate growth of the USA economy and additional strengthening of the labor market.
Still, the payrolls gain added to July consumer spending, residential construction and durable goods orders in suggesting a pickup in economic growth after output rose 1.0 percent in the first half of the year. US stocks were poised for a higher open, with Dow and S&P 500 futures both up 0.2 percent.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index was practically unchanged at 16,925.68 while South Korea’s Kospi edged up 0.2 percent to 2,037.40. Mining shed another 4,000 jobs and is now down by 223,000 jobs since the industry peak in September 2014.
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Back in July, employers added 255,000 jobs which marked a decrease from the 292,000 jobs created in June.
