for transferability may sound trivial, but in practice failure to do so can severely restrict the volume of liquidity assistance available. the snb bases its assessment of solvency on finma ’ s opinion as the supervisory authority. a condition for liquidity assistance is confirmation that the bank is solvent or that a credible resolution plan is available that will restore solvency. these haircuts are based on the mortgage loans after deduction of the respective mortgage clients ’ non - preferred deposits. deposits at swiss and foreign branches of swiss banks and securities firms up to a maximum of chf 100, 000 per depositor are classed as preferred deposits. page 4 / 9 to whom does the snb provide liquidity assistance as lender of last resort? a further important question is who can receive emergency liquidity from the snb. as i said earlier, the rationale behind the role as lender of last resort lies in the very nature of the banking business and the aforementioned achilles heel. bank collapses can lead to financial crises and cause serious harm. the lender of last resort function is therefore aimed at banks. this is in line with the snb ’ s statutory task to contribute to financial stability. until now emergency liquidity assistance has been prepared and regularly tested with all systemically important banks – namely postfinance, raiffeisen group, ubs ( including credit suisse ) and zurcher kantonalbank. the snb is currently expanding the possibilities for obtaining liquidity against mortgages to the whole banking sector. no matter their size, banks can find themselves in a situation where they need significant amounts of liquidity quickly. having started preparations for this expansion in 2019, the snb began the implementation with a pilot project in 2022 and informed the general public in september this year. this expansion will allow the snb to provide liquidity against mortgage collateral to the whole banking sector in the event of liquidity shortages. as mentioned before, a prerequisite for liquidity assistance is that the collateral must be transferable to the snb. if only a handful of banks are involved, this can be individually arranged, implemented and tested. the expansion to cover the entire banking sector calls for a standardised process. mortgage collateral will therefore be transferred digitally and in a standardised format via the electronic six terravis platform. this expansion is open to all banks. the snb expects banks active in mortgage lending to take part in this initiative and prepare mortgages for transfer. broad participation will increase res

, but after progress in bringing demand and supply into better balance in 2023, this rebalancing seemed to stall at the beginning of this year. then in the past month or two, the easing of demand, relative to supply seems to have resumed. the hiring rate, reported by the labor department, slowed relative to the previous three months. in march, the share of workers who voluntarily quit their jobs declined, with the quits rate falling below pre - pandemic levels. this is a sign that fewer workers are jumping to a new and usually higher - paying job. that means firms are in less need to fill vacancies and offer relatively high starting salaries, something that could support moderating wage increases. job creation fell from 315, 000 in march to 175, 000 in april. a big reason for the decline was a sharp drop in the pace of job creation by state and local governments that is unlikely to be repeated, but private sector job creation also fell, another indication that demand for workers continues to slow. that was also the message i take from the unemployment rate in april, which ticked up to 3. 9 percent. it was the 27th consecutive month that unemployment has been below 4 percent, the longest stretch in decades, but it stands noticeably higher than the 3. 4 percent rate last april. meanwhile, the ratio of job vacancies to people looking for work fell to 1. 3, just a tenth of a point above the pre - pandemic level and a sign that the relative shortage of workers related to the pandemic is close to over. 2 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches wage growth is still a bit higher than i believe is needed to be consistent with our 2 percent target, but it's not that high and recent average hourly earnings data suggest that wage growth is moderating. and some measures of wage growth that tend to be forward - looking have also continued to slow on balance. just like the data on economic activity, i see the labor market data supporting renewed progress in lowering inflation, so now let me turn to the outlook for inflation. last week's report on consumer price index ( cpi ) inflation in april was a welcome relief after three months without progress toward 2 percent. that said, the progress was so modest that it did not change my view that i will need to see more evidence of moderating inflation before supporting any easing of monetary policy. if i were still a professor and had to assign a grade to this