Rapid industry growth during the pandemic prompted tech firms to add 80,000 jobs in the US during the first half of 2021, per Insider. However, as the pandemic wanes, it has triggered an economic fallout for tech companies. Salary boosts could prove unsustainable if the industry doesn’t quickly regain its footing, possibly resulting in more layoffs.

Behavioral targeting, also known as audience targeting, uses consumers’ online browsing activity (e.g., pages visited, links clicked, searches performed) and purchase history to create audience segments and serve relevant ads. Connected TV (CTV) advertising includes digital advertising that appears on CTV devices.

Wages are up: Wages have been rising for the past year, as a slew of workers have quit their jobs in search of higher pay, leaving employers scrambling to staff up. In April, the average employee’s hourly wage was up 5.5% year over year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Once relegated to the children’s market, virtual characters are entering the mainstream in China. Fictional as these digitally rendered avatars may be, they hold real jobs, from pop star to influencer, to even news anchor. And they’re becoming increasingly interactive and humanlike, thanks to improvements in technologies such as AI, motion capture, and virtual reality (VR). Recent advancements in augmented reality (AR), in particular, have enabled virtual avatars to step out of social media and make live appearances alongside flesh-and-blood celebrities.

The news: Recent job listings at Google reveal the Big Tech company’s plans for a mobile augmented reality (AR) platform intended to reach billions of users. Why it’s worth watching: After being a pioneer in AR with Google Glass, Google shied away from consumer VR and refocused its technology on enterprise.

While TikTok's popularity was picking up well before COVID-19, individuals secluded in their homes have been in search of new forms of entertainment, causing TikTok's US unique vistor count to rise 48.3% between January and March.

Only 16% of IT workers ages 19 to 29 plan to remain in their jobs, versus 48% of workers in the 50- to 70-year-old segment. Tech workers in Europe are the most likely to remain loyal, at 40%. In the US, 28% said they were happy staying on. Workers in Australia and New Zealand are the most open to moving—only 18% plan to stick with their current jobs.

Google announced it will invest $9.5 billion in US offices and data centers this year, expecting to create at least 12,000 new full-time jobs by year’s end, per The Wall Street Journal. For context, the tech giant has spent more than $37 billion expanding its office and data center footprints over the past five years, including $7 billion in 2021.

Even larger companies like Best Buy (Best Buy Assured Living) and Amazon (Alexa Together) have been developing tech-enabled solutions for making the jobs of caregivers easier. What’s next? All things considered, scalability for this new service might be hard, so Walmart could look to partner with home health agencies that are experiencing high rates of turnover among their caregiver employees.

Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, and PayPal have ceased operations and closed offices in Russia, erasing thousands of jobs and entire industries. At least 33 foreign airlines have stopped flying to Russia, and the majority of European airports prohibit Russian flights from entering their airspace. That means refugees are limited to crossing the border into Finland or the Baltic states.

In late 2021, Meta announced it would create 10,000 jobs within the EU to support its metaverse ambitions. If Meta decides to reduce its European presence, these jobs—and the company’s continued investment in its European operations—will be at risk.

Many are scaling back and cutting jobs, per the Observer. This could lead to job seekers avoiding the tech startup sector. This situation could result in decreased innovation, where monolithic companies continue to thrive as competition from beleaguered startups wanes.

Gaps at the federal level may prompt state regulators to take on the job. For example New York state adopted its own regulations in 2015. The big takeaway: In the absence of direct crypto regulation, firms must self-regulate.

Given that we have an awareness of the moments that people want to experience around books, our job is to deliver that in very clever and interesting ways.

The number of US employees voluntarily quitting their jobs hit a 20-year high in November 2021, as essential and remote workers alike faced burnout and re-evaluated their professional lives. Quit rates remained above pre-pandemic levels as of February, and supply chain issues rage on as many parts of China are under lockdown.

One former Tudum employee said he was mistakenly re-offered a job only to be notified the offer was intended for someone else with the same first name. Netflix has also struggled to produce originals that make a splash with viewers or can be rolled out into franchises.

Twitter launched a dedicated crypto team in November and posted a job listing last month for a senior crypto role to “shape the future of crypto at Twitter.”. Twitter also lets users from the US (except Hawaii and New York) and El Salvador tip fellow tweeters with Bitcoin. Twitter’s Tip Jar lets users send fiat money and Bitcoin via third-party payment services like PayPal and Cash App.