But her next step demonstrated why some Federal Reserve officials see the U.S. job market as not only healthy but perhaps contributing to rising productivity they are coming to believe may persist: Within a week the 33-year-old human resources professional accepted a job as a recruiter with a pool equipment operator that allowed her to work from home in Pennsylvania in her area of expertise - a sweet spot, she feels, for high performance. When Fed policymakers gather this week for their last meeting of the year, the focus will be on an expected quarter-percentage-point interest rate cut and policymakers' updated outlooks for the economy and rate cuts. But influencing those discussions and the longer-term arc of monetary policy is an emerging debate about productivity and how fast output can grow without stretching the economy's capacity and generating inflation above the Fed's 2% target.
