"The recent improvement in payroll employment growth, is out-sized relative to the growth rate of economic activity that supports it"
- Dudley, vice chairman of the policy setting Federal Open Market Committee
As the Bank of Japan introduced the world's biggest stimulus programme last week, the Federal Reserve is now expected to focus on signals of whether to end its quantitative easing or not. Minutes of the FOMC's March meeting due out on Wednesday, April 10th, will be scrutinised for information about the committee's thinking on both the timing and manner of any exit from its asset purchase programme. During last months' meeting, the Fed did not make any policy shifts, maintaining its quantitative easing purchases at $85bn a month, however, claimed readiness to taper off its purchases in the second half of this year. However, the Federal Reserve policy makers are preparing for the summertime slump, as the latest data are showing mixed signals. Friday's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the economy generated just 88,000 jobs in March, the fewest in nine month.
"The recent improvement in payroll employment growth, which gets much of the attention, is out-sized relative to the growth rate of economic activity that supports it," Dudley, vice chairman of the policy setting Federal Open Market Committee, said in a March 25 speech in New York. "We have seen this movie before. When this happened in 2011 and 2012, employment growth subsequently slowed."
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