Bullard: Improvement in labor force not happening fast enough to ease inflation

(Reuters) – The U.S. labor force is not increasing fast enough to help with the Fed’s immediate battle with inflation, St. Louis Fed president James Bullard said Thursday, discounting the hope that a flood of new workers will improve the supply of goods and ease wage pressure.

“We are pulling people back into the labor force but that is a slow process and not something that is occurring at a high enough frequency to help us on the inflation dimension,” Bullard said.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider)