Fed Reports Smooth Growth in Economy

The U.S. economy grew steadily as autumn began, generating scant wage or price pressures despite the increasing difficulty of finding workers in some industries, the Federal Reserve Board said Wednesday.

The U.S. central bank’s so-called Beige Book survey painted a benign picture of the economy’s performance. There was little in it to imply that policy-setting members of the Federal Open Market Committee are likely to be pushed into raising interest rates when they meet Nov. 12.

The survey said the economy expanded at a moderate-to-strong pace between mid-September, when the last Beige Book was issued, and Oct. 20, when information was collected for the latest one.

“Many districts report tight labor markets and hiring difficulties in some occupations, but there are few reports of wage or price pressures,” the Fed summary said.

Experts in computers and in the oil and gas industries were the hardest to find, the summary said.

The Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, which covers the Western states, noted companies such as Boeing Co. had to curb production because of worker shortages, and the Chicago Fed said manufacturers there were “desperately short of people.”

Even so, the summary, prepared on the basis of interviews with businesses across the country, found no evident sign of inflation.

Earlier, the Commerce Department reported that orders for costly, manufactured goods fell for the first time in four months in September, but rising shipments and order backlogs pointed to underlying economic strength.

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Durable Goods

New orders, in billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted:

Sept.: $185.7

Source: Commerce Department