The US economy needs to grow more quickly if it is to produce enough jobs to bring down the unemployment rate, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday.
Bernanke said the recent decline in the jobless rate, which dropped to 8.3% in February from 9.1% last summer, was "somewhat out of sync" with the rather modest pace of economic growth.
US gross domestic product grew 3% in the fourth quarter, but is expected to have slowed to just below 2% in the first three months of this year.
Bernanke said the recent drop in the jobless rate could reflect an effort by businesses to recalibrate their payrolls after unusually heavy job cuts during the recession. If this is the case, he said, progress may stall.
"To the extent that this reversal has been complete, further significant improvements in the unemployment rate will likely require a more rapid expansion of production and demand from consumers and businesses, a process that can be supported by continued accommodative policies," Bernanke told a gathering of the National Association for Business Economics.
US stock index futures extended their gains and government debt prices trimmed their losses after Bernanke's comments. The dollar turned negative against the euro and trimmed its gains versus the yen.
Bernanke reiterated his concern about long-term unemployment, but argued against the notion that much of the problem is due to structural factors that monetary policy could not address.
"The continued weakness in aggregate demand is likely the predominant factor. Consequently, the Federal Reserve's accommodative monetary policies, by providing support for demand and for the recovery, should help, over time, to reduce long-term unemployment as well," he said.
The central bank chairman has made several public appearances in recent days, including giving a series of lectures to college students. This is part of an effort to burnish the institution's public image, battered in the wake of the financial crisis.
Bernanke said much of the improvement in the US labor market since the summer of 2009, when the economy began emerging from the deepest recession in generations, was due to a decline in layoffs rather than a robust pick up in the number of employers taking on new workers.
"To achieve a more rapid recovery in the job market, hiring rates will need to return to more normal levels," he said.