
Fred Wang is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s News & Commentary, unemployed workers are taking longer to find jobs, Amazon is under investigation for potentially misleading investors about workplace safety, and how tech layoffs are affecting different generations of workers differently.
Unemployed workers are taking longer to find jobs, the Wall Street Journal reports. In April 2022, 526,000 unemployed workers had been out of a job for 3.5 to 6 months. That figure rose to 826,000 workers in December, per Labor Department estimates. This is because companies have started “dialing back on hiring last year, in part reflecting heightened uncertainty in the face of Federal Reserve interest-rate increases.”
Amazon is being investigated by the federal government for potentially misleading investors about the company’s safety record, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office is seeking documents on Amazon’s labor practices, under a federal law regulating wrongdoing that impacts banks. At the same time, the company is also under investigation by the Labor Department for workplace-safety violations. The Labor Department has already cited Amazon for not adequately reporting injuries at six of its warehouses.
Layoffs in the tech industry are a rude awakening for young workers, but not older ones, this New York Times report explains. This generational divide reflects the simple fact that older workers have more experience dealing with a cyclical crash. Millennial and Generation Z employees (born between 1981 and 2012) started their tech careers when tech companies were “conquering the world and defying economic rules.” But baby boomers and Generation X members (born between 1946 and 1980) have already lived through the dot-com crash.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.
July 4
The DOL scraps a Biden-era proposed rule to end subminimum wages for disabled workers; millions will lose access to Medicaid and SNAP due to new proof of work requirements; and states step up in the noncompete policy space.
July 3
California compromises with unions on housing; 11th Circuit rules against transgender teacher; Harvard removes hundreds from grad student union.
July 2
Block, Nanda, and Nayak argue that the NLRA is under attack, harming democracy; the EEOC files a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former EEOC Commissioner Jocelyn Samuels; and SEIU Local 1000 strikes an agreement with the State of California to delay the state's return-to-office executive order for state workers.
July 1
In today’s news and commentary, the Department of Labor proposes to roll back minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by public defenders over a union’s Gaza statements, and Philadelphia’s largest municipal union is on strike for first time in nearly 40 years. On Monday, the U.S. […]
June 30
Antidiscrimination scholars question McDonnell Douglas, George Washington University Hospital bargained in bad faith, and NY regulators defend LPA dispensary law.