S. central bank will raise rates next month, after a week in which several Fed officials made the case for lifting rates to tackle stubborn inflation.

Following the data release, futures markets flipped the odds of a rate hike at the September 15 to 16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting from likelier-than-not to a worse-than-even chance, and are split on where the Fed will end up by year's end. S.

2% driven ⁠by the move ⁠of workers out of the labor force. The downward shift in hiring conditions pointed to the possibility that the relative stability of the job market may be more vulnerable than thought.

That in turn puts Fed officials in a place where they may have to think more about how a rate hike aimed at lowering inflation might weigh on already low levels of hiring. 75%, with three officials dissenting in favor of a rate hike.

It did so as inflation continued to overshoot its target of 2%. 7% year-on-year in June.

HAWKISH TURNIn the days since the Fed met, a number of officials have expressed strong interest in a hike, or an openness to tighter policy depending on what lies ahead for the economy. The three dissenters at the FOMC meeting argued that policy is simply not delivering ⁠the amount ‌of restraint needed to bring price pressures back under control.

In comments this week the leaders of the Kansas City and St. Louis Fed banks said they also argued in favor of higher rates at last week's gathering.

Even Fed officials who voted in favor of steady rates have shown a willingness to act if needed." My forecast personally is for ⁠inflation to come down in the second half of this year and come down further next year," New York Fed President John Williams said in an interview conducted last Friday.

But, "if the economy is not on a trajectory that will bring inflation back down to 2% ... it would absolutely be appropriate to act," he said.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook said on Wednesday that she "would support an increase, if it becomes necessary, to bring inflation down. It may not."

Meanwhile, Philadelphia Fed leader Anna Paulson, who holds an FOMC vote, said in an essay that she has an "open mind" on what the Fed will need to do, and noted in a TV interview the response "could be higher rates" or "same rates for longer." In a television appearance Friday, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin indicated the jobs data may not even have changed that much in Fed thinking, calling the July report "very consistent with how I've been seeing the labor market, which is: it's not loose, it's not tight."