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Policy should focus on overall progress - Fed's Bullard

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve should focus on overall economic improvement rather than snapshots of labour conditions that may miss market forecasts in making its decision whether to raise interest rates, a top U.S. central bank official said on Friday. "The focus should be on cumulative progress rather than a single data point," said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, when asked about the September payrolls data that were weaker than analysts' expectations. The Labor Department said on Friday U.S. employers added 142,000 jobs in September, fewer than the 203,000 forecast among economists polled by Reuters. Bullard delivered a speech earlier on "Three Challenges on Central Bank Orthodoxy" at the Shadow Open Market Committee hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He will be a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-setting group, in 2016. [FED/DIARY] Bullard told reporters later it is unrealistic for the U.S. economy to produce more than 200,000 jobs a month indefinitely. "I expect sub-200,000 jobs (gains) as the new normal in the future," he said. (Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)