Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said Tuesday he still expects the central bank to begin raising short-term interest rates this year, despite a slowing of job gains in September.

"[T]hings are looking up, and if they stay on track, I see this as the year we start the process of monetary policy normalization," Mr. Williams was due to say in prepared remarks to the Urban Land Institute in San Francisco.

The September employment report released Friday showed the U.S. labor market lost momentum after a long stretch of stronger job creation. The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.1%, but employers added just 142,000 jobs, well below expectations. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a payrolls gain of 200,000.

Over the past three months, the economy has added jobs at the slowest pace since February 2014. Employers were adding an average of more than 200,000 jobs each month since the spring of last year, but now that pace has slowed.

Mr. Williams repeated in his speech Tuesday that it is realistic to expect gains at "more normal levels," or less than 200,000 jobs a month.

"Looking to the future, we're going to need at most 100,000 new jobs each month," Mr. Williams said, adding, "In the mindset of the recovery, that sounds like nothing; but in the context of a healthy economy, it's what's needed for stable growth."

His comments largely repeated remarks he gave in Utah on Thursday.

Wall Street listens closely to Mr. Williams because his views tend to reflect the center of thinking inside the Fed.

Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 06, 2015 17:55 ET (21:55 GMT)