The U.S. Federal Reserve has announced its second interest rate cut in a row, reducing its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point.

After a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank said in a statement Wednesday that it had decided to lower its key lending rate to a new range of three-point-75 to four percent.

A slowdown in hiring prompted the Fed to lower the key rate, as it did in September.

As a result of the cut, the gap with South Korea's benchmark rate of two-point-five percent has narrowed to between one-point-25 and one-point-five percent.

In a policy statement on Wednesday, the U.S. central bank said that job gains have slowed this year and that unemployment, which remained low through the end of summer, has now edged up.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, however, said that a further rate cut at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion.