At Jackson Hole symposium, Fed-watchers eye Powell's labor market framing

Central bankers from around the world are gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this week. Not for sightseeing or fly fishing, but for the Federal Reserve's annual Economic Policy Symposium. Fed chair Jay Powell is set to speak Friday and analysts will be paying extra attention to his comments on the labor market — especially after that weak July jobs report we saw a few weeks ago.

The labor market has lost momentum over the last few months. But if you're looking for a job, the odds seem to be in your favor.

"We have as many vacancies as there are people looking for work," said Peter Orazem, an economics professor at Iowa State University.

He said the number of people looking for work has come down.

"And so from that perspective, what's really holding back the economy, is we just don't have enough workers to fill all the jobs that firms want to employ," he said.

In other words, Orazem said the labor market is slowing down — but it's not waiving any red flags. At least not yet.

Preston Mui, an economist with the research group Employ America, said the jobs market is basically treading water.

"But you can't tread water forever. And there's a real question about how long things can continue like this," he said.

Mui said employers have been putting off decisions about hiring in large part because tariff policy has been so uncertain. But if that becomes more clear?

"Eventually, at some point, they might have to make a decision about whether or not they're going to cut hiring even further, or if they might even start laying off some workers," he said.

That's what the Federal Reserve is concerned about, Mui said. If the job market gets even weaker, the central bank might have to step in and support it by cutting interest rates instead of just waiting to see what happens.

"We saw low job growth numbers over the previous three months, and now they're starting to think maybe we don't have the luxury of waiting," he said.

That said, a rate cut at the Fed's next meeting in September isn't necessarily a done deal. For one, we're going to get a lot of additional jobs data before then. On top of that, inflation has been sticking around.

"It's always that delicate balance of labor-inflation, labor-inflation. And it seems that those two have been really switching places, in terms of the order of importance," said Winnie Cisar, head of strategy at CreditSights.

Cisar said the Fed already has a lot of evidence that the labor market is starting to become more of a concern. That's why she's going to pay close attention to the tone Fed Chair Powell uses this week when he describes the labor market.

"How he explains the most recent data, how he explains the interplay between inflation not having moved down all that much since they began cutting rates last year, versus the labor markets, which have objectively shown some signs of meaningful pressure," she said.

If the labor market continues to weaken, Cisar said the Fed will have the evidence it needs to start cutting rates again.