NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve could remove some of the extraordinary support it has extended to the U.S. economy once the recovery looks solid and monthly job growth has returned, a top U.S. central bank official told the Financial Times.

In an interview posted on the newspaper's website on Sunday, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said he would not favor tightening monetary policy before recovery was well-established.

"You are going to need to have jobs growth and you are going to need to have unemployment declining," said Bullard, who moves into a voting seat on the Fed's rate-setting panel next year.

A report on Friday showed the U.S. unemployment rate surged to 10.2 percent in October, leading traders in the interest rate futures market to cut bets on the central bank raising overnight interest rates by the middle of next year.

The Fed cut the benchmark the federal funds rate to near zero in December and put in place a vast array of emergency liquidity facilities in an effort to combat the worst financial crisis and recession since the 1930s.

As part of its emergency efforts, it has bought long-term government and mortgage-related debt to try to drive down borrowing costs.

The central bank has pledged to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for "an extended period". Most analysts expect it to hold rates near zero until mid-2010 or later.

Bullard said that tightening monetary policy "does not have to involve as its first step moving the federal funds rate off zero". Instead, he favored at that point selling back assets the Fed had acquired, the Financial Times said.

Many Fed officials have said asset sales could disrupt financial markets and push up long-term interest rates. But Bullard said that with proper planning, asset sales did not need to be disruptive.