If you had a hunch that the economy is in the tubes lately, you’re not alone: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell agrees with you.

After his long-anticipated Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday, Powell told reporters that “job creation is very low, and the job-finding rate for people who are unemployed is very low.”

Per Fortune magazine, Powell added that a “significant number of companies” have been contributing to the malaise by laying off workers or pausing hiring. Their reason? None other than artificial intelligence.

“Much of the time they’re talking about AI and what it can do,” the Fed chair said about executives of large corporations. “We’re watching that very carefully.”

Powell’s cynical comments come after the Fed announced that it’d cut interest down to

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