College graduates face favorable prospects, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen told students Monday in some of her most optimistic comments as head of the central bank.
Delivering commencement remarks at the University of Baltimore, Yellen declared that “the job prospects and career opportunities for new graduates at this time are very good.”
The current job market is the strongest in a decade and college graduation is a key step toward having success in work, Yellen explained.
Yellen also referred to a survey published by the Fed Monday finding that young people have become much more optimistic about the future over the past two years.
Monday’s speech was among the first comments from the Fed since last week’s decision to raise the target interest rate by a quarter percentage point, the first rate hike in a year.
That decision came with a pronouncement that recent job gains have been “solid” and that the Fed is now seeking only “some further strengthening” in the jobs market as the economy nears what Fed officials see as full employment.
