Fed’s Dudley Says Jobs Report Damps Upbeat Economic Data

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said the economy may be gaining strength even as the weakest job growth in five months highlights risks to growth.

“The incoming data on the U.S. economy has been a bit more upbeat of late, suggesting that the recovery may be getting better established,” Dudley said, speaking to business leaders at the Syracuse Technology Garden in Syracuse, New York and repeated in an identical speech at Syracuse University later this morning. Yet “it is still too soon to conclude that we are out of the woods, as underlined by the March labor-market release,” he said, adding he still supports holding the Fed’s main interest rate close to zero through late 2014.