Fed’s Bullard: U.S. jobless rate to start falling

The labour market in the United States is improving and the economy is close to the point when the unemployment rate will start to fall, a top U.S. Federal Reserve official said on Thursday.

James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, also said that U.S. housing prices were stabilising, and that housing starts were also likely to steady and cease to be a drag on growth.

Bullard, who votes on the U.S. central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year, was speaking to an audience of university students in Shanghai.