Google employees take another step in their activism, Venmo adds a check-cashing feature and Slack has some issues. This is your Daily Crunch for January 4, 2021. More than 200 employees at Google and its parent company Alphabet have announced that they have formed the Alphabet Workers Union.

California State University, East Bay published a public database of remote job vacancies across the country to help people struggling to find employment due to the pandemic. In a press release last week, the university said it wants to help "pull the rising unemployment level in the country back to its normal level."

Official government figures show that unemployment around the U.S. has fallen sharply since peaking at nearly 15% in April as the coronavirus was shuttering businesses left and right. Yet the jobless rate as depicted in headlines offers a skewed picture of employment today, failing to capture the real financial pressure bearing down on millions of Americans, according to a new study.

Two key programs Congress passed this year to expand and enhance unemployment insurance expire on Jan. 1, leaving millions of people without benefits unless lawmakers can break a monthslong deadlock over a fresh round of pandemic relief.

As the number of coronavirus cases continue to increase, the number of Americans who have been jobless for more than 26 weeks jumped to 3.6 million last month. This worries labor economists and social scientists about the slow rate of economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of unemployed workers continues to fall, reflecting a rebound from the deep economic hole gouged out by the coronavirus pandemic in the early spring. But a sinister trend is churning under the surface. Long-term unemployment — a period of joblessness lasting more than 27 weeks (or, six months) — is accelerating quickly.

Governments use a variety of labor market policies to support workers who lose their jobs – each with a different impact on a country's well-being.

When the initial wave of layoffs due to the coronavirus hit the U.S. economy in April and subsequent lockdowns, many people thought these losses would be temporary phenomenon that would quickly rebound as businesses reopened.However, the new employment data seems to suggest that these “temporary” job losses have turned permanent for millions of Americans.

American workers continued to hit the unemployment line in large numbers last week, with 898,000 new claims filed for jobless benefits. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 830,000. The total for the week ended Oct. 10 was the highest number since Aug. 22 and another sign that the labor market continues to struggle to get back to its pre-coronavirus pandemic mark as cases rise and worries increase over a renewed wave in the fall and winter. The number represented a gain of 53,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 845,000.

Walt Disney Co. said it would lay off about 28,000 employees at its domestic theme parks, making the announcement shortly after the state of California signaled that Disneyland Resort would likely have to remain closed for the foreseeable future due to Covid-19 concerns.

Americans were starting to fall off the rolls of unemployment. But Thursday's claims report shows the drop-off hasn't just stalled out — the trend continues to reverse course.

Businesses in many states are likely to face tax increases as early as next year to replenish depleted trust funds that pay unemployment benefits. Workers may also face cuts in unemployment benefits.

Worries of a K-shaped recovery are growing in the alphabet-obsessed economics profession. That would entail continued growth, but split sharply between industries and economic groups. 

Economists are worried that the tepid recovery in the US job market could run out of steam this fall should coronavirus cases surge again just as federal stimulus money runs out.

After the failed talks of stimulus negotiators between the Republican and Democratic highest officials, Congress would reportedly act on the second round of the stimulus payment next month.

The pandemic’s resurgence, coupled with dire warnings about a likely second wave, now seems to be halting in its tracks the economy’s very strong bounce from its second-quarter collapse.

Uh-oh. Those of us who remember when ’80s music was new had better start bracing ourselves for those big-box-store greeter jobs earlier than we expected. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the jobs market is probably heading for a massive, rolling shakeout. And that means plenty of employers may be using the cover of COVID-19 to get rid of lots of expensive older workers.

A proposal floated by the White House and some Republicans that would tie unemployment payouts to roughly 70% of a worker’s previous wage in a next coronavirus stimulus bill could delay jobless benefits by up to 20 weeks, a new memo reported by NPR shows, leaving around 25 million Americans relying on the payments with a drastic pay cut for a lengthy period of time.

Black and Hispanic households in greatest danger as evictions loom. Days from the end of enhanced unemployment benefits and a federal eviction moratorium, 24 million Americans say they have little to no chance of being able to pay next month’s rent, a U.S. Census Bureau survey shows.

"The cliff is totally visible in front of us": The future is grim if Congress doesn’t act on the economy. The country is ambling toward a cliff, putting millions of Americans’ lives and livelihoods in danger and all but ensuring prolonged economic distress nationwide. It didn’t have to be this way. Yet here we are, unable to shake out of it.