Fed Chair Jerome Powell (Photo: Reuters)

The decision moves in a direction called for by President Donald Trump, but falls far short of the steep cuts in borrowing costs that he has demanded.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking in a press conference after the US central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to the 4.00%-4.25% range and indicated more cuts would follow at meetings in October and December, said the softening job market was now top of the mind for him and his fellow policymakers.

Powell said he believes the recent pace of job creation is running below the break-even rate needed to hold the unemployment rate constant, and that with businesses doing very little hiring overall, any increase in layoffs could quickly feed into higher unemployment.