Welcome to the news hour. The US labor market slowed down notably last month and looked weaker than expected

creating just 114,000 new jobs. That's down significantly from the average of 215,000 jobs a month over the past year.

The unemployment rate ticked up again to 4.3%, that's the highest since late 2021.

The reaction to today's report is raising questions for the second time in as many days

about whether the Federal Reserve has waited too long to cut interest rates.

Economist Mohammed Al Arian is among those who have been very vocal about this.

He's the president of Queens College, Cambridge University,

and the chief economic advisor at Alianz, and he joins us now.

Thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

First, a question about this jobs report.

What do it in recent economic data

tell you about where the economy is right now.

They tell us that the economy is weakening

in a much broader and much faster rate

than most people expected, including the Federal Reserve.

Is this weakening or slowdown the direct result of the Fed strategy of keeping interest rates

high to fight inflation?

It is, and it was meant to slow the economy. The question is, do you get a normalization

or do you get something worse?

Or, to use the economic language, do you get something worse? Or to use the economic language,

do you get a soft landing where you sacrifice some growth

...