- 19 stimulus payments, ” working paper series 2020 - 15 ( chicago : federal reserve bank of chicago, may ; revised february 2021 ), https : / / www. chicagofed. org / publications / working - papers / 2020 / 2020 - 15. - 3spending and gdp this year, the absence of similar transfers will lower the growth rate of spending next year relative to this year. the boost to spending from pent up demand this year as the economy reopens is also unlikely to be repeated next year. the latest jobs report reminds us that while there are good reasons to expect the number of jobs and the number of people wanting to work will make a full recovery, it is unlikely they will recover at the same pace. over the past few months, the demand for workers has strengthened as covid - affected sectors have reopened. labor supply has also improved, with many people coming back into the labor force and others extending their hours of work, but there are indications that many other workers still face virusrelated impediments. although the fraction of the population ages 25 to 54 that is employed has improved in each month of this year, the current prime - age employmentto - population ( epop ) ratio of 76. 9 percent is still far from the 80 percent level reached during both of the past two expansions. 5 on the demand side, we saw a welcome increase of 331, 000 jobs in the hard - hit leisure and hospitality sector in april following a 206, 000 increase in march. but bottlenecks on inputs such as semiconductors appear to be limiting production and hiring in industries such as motor vehicles, contributing to a decline of 18, 000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. the increase in average hours worked and the reduction in people who are working part time but would prefer full - time work suggest some employers are responding to the increase in demand by lengthening workweeks. for additional discussion, see lael brainard ( 2021 ), “ how should we think about full employment in the federal reserve ’ s dual mandate? ” speech delivered at the ec10, principles of economics, lecture, faculty of arts and sciences, harvard university, cambridge, mass. ( via webcast ), february 24, https : / / www. federalreserve. gov / newsevents / speech / brainard20210224a. htm. - 4on the supply side, the number of people entering the labor force strengthened for the second month

, and to have done so alongside such excellent and stimulating colleagues. since mid - 2007 decisions have become more difficult and the task more stressful, but the overriding objective of achieving the cpi inflation target and maintaining confidence in this target has remained the right guide for policy. a significant part of an mpc member ’ s work is explaining policy to various audiences, or accompanying the banks ’ regional agents on visits and discussions with business and other contacts. i am sure that the work of the bank ’ s twelve agents based around the uk, and the willingness of mpc members to be seen out and about, both contribute to the credibility of the mpc. they also serve the valuable purpose of giving us high - quality and up - to - date feedback on business trends. while these visits enable business audiences to question and debate policy, perhaps another aspect of accountability has been a little less satisfactory. once a quarter, several members of the mpc accompany the governor to an appearance before the treasury committee. the purpose of the sessions is to hold us to account for our individual votes. however, despite some recent improvement, it remains the case that the vast majority of questions from the mps tend to be directed at the governor. my view is that it would be better in future to ensure that each mpc member attending, including the external members, has the opportunity to explain their recent votes and to comment on the key policy issues. as i leave the mpc, the challenges remain considerable. in retrospect, my first two terms on the mpc were periods which now look like the small change of monetary policy – small changes in bank rate aimed at adjusting for relatively small anticipated deviations of inflation from target. as i suggested at the start, it may however also have been the period in which a large error was made in allowing the belief to become established that policymakers had solved the issue of economic instability. as jean - claude trichet recently commented : “... remedial action has often been triggered as soon as the financial firestorm has threatened the stability of the economic system. but such action risks raising expectations that macroeconomic policy will always insure against tail risks, no matter how large. ” 13 even when policymakers have added robust macroprudential instruments to their armoury, it will be important to be clear that there will still be sources of macroeconomic instability. this may not be easy during any prolonged period without such a shock, unless policymakers are prepared to be a