The US Federal Reserve this week will raise the key interest rate for the second time in 2018, working to stay one step ahead of inflation.

A hiring spree in May helped drive the unemployment rate down to levels eerily similar to those recorded almost 50 years ago — just before an era of high inflation and economic pain that many Americans still recall with a shudder.

It took years of high lending rates for the Fed to rein in prices and see growth restored in the world’s largest economy, and the central bank since has been focused on avoiding a repeat.

Even before last month’s expectations-shattering jobs report — 223,000 net new positions were created and unemployment hit the lowest in 18 years at 3.8 percent — members of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee had signaled they were ready to move.

And even Fed Governor Lael Brainard, an influential voice who spent much of 2017 urging fellow policymakers to wait before raising rates, has sounded somewhat more hawkish of late.

She recently said gradual rate increases are now justified and downplayed worries possible signs in financial markets of trouble ahead for the economy.

Recent data show the number of job openings now exceeds the population of job seekers for the first time on record, dating back to 2000.

And in such a tight labor market, anecdotal reports collected by the Fed show employers are having to raise wages to prevent other companies from poaching their workers, re-hire retirees, or begin recruiting directly from trade schools.

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