US December jobless rate likely at 4.6%, Chicago Fed says

By Ann Saphir

Jan 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.6% in December, the Chicago Federal Reserve estimated on Thursday, a figure that suggests the labor market remained stuck in a low-hire, low-fire mode and may add ?to the case for more Fed interest rate cuts ahead.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will ?publish the official December unemployment rate on Friday, and economists polled ?by Reuters expect it to drop slightly to ?4.5%.

The Fed last ?month cut its policy rate because the majority of rate-setters felt the labor market was ?cooling, posing risks that outweighed the ?threat of still too-high inflation. But they also signaled they would likely pause further rate cuts in the ?new year to give time to ?see how ?the labor market evolves and if inflation improves.

Financial markets are pricing only about a 10% chance of an interest-rate cut ?at the Fed's January 27-28 meeting, with the chance of a rate cut rising to about 55% by its April 28-29 meeting.

"A 4.6% would keep the Fed on track to cut in January," Morgan Stanley economists wrote on Wednesday in their preview of the ?December jobs ?report.

A 4.5% December jobless rate, on the other hand, "will support our forecast for the Federal Reserve to keep policy on ?hold until midyear," wrote Oxford Economics analysts earlier this week.

The Chicago Fed derives its estimate from public and private data and issues it twice a month. The latest figure reflected small declines in the rates at which workers are being hired and fired compared with its preliminary December estimate published ?two weeks ago.

Policymakers rely on a broad range of data to inform their rate-setting decisions, but say the unemployment rate is a key measure as they assess the ?state of the labor market.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chris Reese)