A strong global economic recovery is under way, and is unlikely to be thrown off course by European debt woes or the improbable event of the bursting of an asset bubble in China, a top Federal Reserve official said today.

“While the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is indeed a serious matter, the global recovery at this point looks very strong and seems unlikely to be derailed,” said St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference in Tokyo, Reuters reported.

Bullard also said Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has not pushed back the timing of an eventual rise in the Fed’s benchmark interest rate, as some market watchers have speculated.

The recovery in the U.S. economy needs to become more firm in order for the Fed to raise rates, Bullard said.

Bullard, a voter on the Fed’s interest-rate-setting panel this year, said he expected the U.S. economy as measured by gross domestic product would recover to pre-global-crisis levels by the third quarter of this year.

The financial turmoil in Europe is not large enough to spread to the United States and Asia, Bullard said.

The U.S. recovery is likely to continue, and private-sector job creation will start to pick up in the summer, gradually pushing the jobless rate lower this year, Bullard said.

Some economists may have an overly pessimistic view of the U.S. labor market because they are excluding the number of temporary jobs created, he said.