Oxford Economics: The Federal Reserve may cut interest rates twice this year to support the labor market.

The Oxford Economics Research Institute stated that the overall employment data for March greatly exaggerated the strength of the pre-war job market, and noted that both the labor force and household employment numbers have decreased. The chief US economist of the institute, Nancy Vanden Houten, predicted that as the Iran war begins to impact real economic activity, employment growth will slow down. She said in a report, "The impact of the war on inflation is immediate, but the negative spillover effects on consumer spending, business investment, and hiring will become more fully evident in the coming months." Vanden Houten added that the institute's basic forecast remains that the Federal Reserve will ignore the one-time shock of rising oil prices and cut interest rates twice this year to guard against any future weakness in the labor market.