(Reuters) – Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari on Tuesday said he believes the forces that are currently keeping people out of the labor market and pushing up prices will prove to be temporary, and will fade as COVID-19 turns from being pandemic to being endemic.
“We are getting these mixed signals out of the economy,” Kashkari said at an Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce event, with wages rising, for instance, but an estimated 5 million to 7 million fewer jobs than would have been expected had there been no COVID-19 crisis.
“I’m optimistic, in the next three, six, nine months we will get a lot more information,” and clarity about the outlook for both inflation and the labor market, he said.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chris Reese)
