Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen does not believe a recession is coming, but wouldn't say it was "completely off the table."
Yellen’s comments came shortly after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added 209,000 jobs in June, which was below expectations of 225,000, and was the first report in months that came in below the consensus prediction.
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"We would expect, with the job market as strong as it is now, to see a slower pace of ongoing job gains," the secretary said in a Sunday interview on CBS' Face the Nation. "Prime age labor force participation is at the highest level in several decades, so we've seen this strong job market attract workers back to it. But as- as that stabilizes at a high level, we should expect the monthly job gains to be coming down toward a more normal level."
Yellen said the country made a “very rapid [and] a dramatic rebound,” following the huge job loss and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
"Now growth has slowed somewhat back to more normal levels because we've put Americans back to work; we have a labor market that is functioning at a very high level," she said. "So, it's appropriate and normal that growth should moderate, but we have a healthy economy, a great labor market, inflation too high, and a concern of ours and the American people, but coming down over time, and it's my hope that, and belief, that there is a path to bring inflation down in the context of a healthy labor market and the data that I've seen suggests we're on that path."
Similarly, acting United States Labor Secretary Julie Su said on Friday she was “not going to make predictions” as to whether the U.S. has successfully avoided a recession.
“Investing in America, including industries like semiconductor infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy,” Su explained, laying out steps the Biden administration has taken. “Also investing in American workers and also increasing competition to decrease prices.”
Yellen visited China for high-level meetings with her Beijing counterparts to strengthen U.S. relations with the country.
“We seek healthy economic competition that is not winner-take-all but that, with a fair set of rules, can benefit both countries over time,” Yellen told Chinese Premier Li Qiang. “The United States will, in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security. And we may disagree in these instances. However, we should not allow any disagreement to lead to misunderstandings that unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship.”
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Her trip came as the Biden administration imposed restrictions on American-Chinese trade in the past year, including limiting the sale of chip-making technology.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. will soon require U.S. cloud-service providers, such as Microsoft and Amazon, to get government approval before providing Chinese companies with cloud-computing services that use advanced artificial intelligence chips, while China announced that it will be restricting exports to certain metals used in the production of semiconductor chips.