federal reserve bank of atlanta president raphael bostic said us employment gains are slowing in an orderly manner and there is no need to hike rates further to ease inflation “i expected the economy to slow down in a fairly orderly way and this number 187000 comes in continuing that pace” bostic said on bloomberg television’s wall street week with david westin “i’m comfortable i’m not expecting this to be over in a short period of time” bostic spoke after a us bureau of labor statistics report showed that employment increased at a solid pace in july though the gain of 187000 last month represented a significant slowing from earlier in the year that some economists said indicated the economy could be on track for a soft landing the central bank has been seeking to reduce growth to below its longterm trend to reduce an inflation rate that has been elevated the fed is on a trajectory to get back to its 2 inflation target and can get there by holding rates at the current level for a long period bostic said “we are today in a restrictive stance and as inflation continues to fall the degree to which it’s restrictive actually grows as that gap between the inflation rate and our interest rate widens” he said “so i think that will put enough constraint on the economy that it will continue to slow but again i’m not expecting this to be a twomonth or a threemonth period” “my outlook is that we’ll still be in a restrictive territory well into 2024 and it’ll just take a while” bostic said the fed raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point at its july 2526 meeting bringing the fed funds rate to a range of 525 to 55 the highest level in 22 years policymakers have slowed the pace of increases after aggressively tightening rates to bring down inflation that last year reached a 40year high the latest hike followed a pause at the june gathering bostic said he wasn’t concerned by wages that came in above expectations in the latest employment report “it doesn’t surprise me that wages are still strong” he said “during this whole high inflation period worker wages have trailed inflation for quite some time and so we’re still in that catchup period and i expect that we will still see strong wages” bostic said he was watching inflation reports carefully as he assesses fed policy a report last friday showed the fed’s preferred inflation gauge the personal consumption expenditures price index rose 3 from a year earlier in june the smallest increase in more than two years core prices which exclude food and energy and are regarded as a more reliable signal of underlying inflation advanced 41