Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said on Thursday it was appropriate to focus on returning inflation to the central bank's 2% target given the U.S. labour market has been "very resilient" to the current energy shock. "When I'm thinking about my policy decision meeting by meeting, I'm absolutely focused on price stability, but by mandate I also need to keep in mind what's happening in the labour market," Jefferson said during a question and answer session after a speech at a conference hosted by the BOJ and its think tank in Tokyo.