March 6 (Reuters) – San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly said Friday that a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report underscores her concern about the labor market, but does not mean the Fed should immediately cut rates in response, given the “two-sided” risks posed by still-too-high inflation coupled with a runup in oil prices amid the Iran conflict.
“There’s another alternative which is also a policy alternative, which is to hold them steady while we collect more information,” Daly told CNBC, referring to short-term borrowing costs that the Fed cut last year but held steady in January.
“I’m certainly not in a position to think we should be hiking interest rates, but I think there’s a real issue about whether we should meet immediately, urgently act on the labor market, or whether we should wait to think through the data.”
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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