More people will come back to the workforce, but wages won't increase until the economy does, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said in a CNBC.com only interview.
"Wages are going to pick up once the economy starts to really pick up," Evans said, "once businesses start to have to hire a lot of new workers in the skill categories that will be in demand."
Employment will be on the minds of Federal Reserve policymakers as they gather next week for their October meeting. They'll be trying to figure out if the job market and the economy are strong enough to support a tapering of the central bank's $85 billion-a-month bond buying, known as quantitative easing.
(Read more: Fed monthly QE to $1 trillion: Marc Faber)
Evans also said, "We're not in a business-as-usual situation right now" and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman would be on board with QE.
Earlier on CNBC's "Squawk Box," the Chicago Fed president said the Fed may not begin tapering for months because the government shutdown delayed many economic reports key to the decision-making process.
(Read more: Fed's Evans: Shutdown may delay taper by months)
—By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere. Follow him on Twitter @Matt_SquawkCNBC.