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.

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.

An Apple spokesperson told The Verge that the company has “always put our users at the center of everything we do, and the App Store is the cornerstone of our work to connect developers and customers in a way that is safe and trustworthy,” noting that the App Store supports 2.1 million jobs across all 50 states.

Gajria added that between 2022 and 2025, Equiano will indirectly create 1.7 million jobs in Nigeria and South Africa. Trendspotting: Big Tech companies continue to invest heavily in network connectivity in emerging countries as a way to own not just the content and data on the internet, but physical infrastructure and services.

Consumers spent $72.3 billion in the Apple App Store in 2020, which Apple claims supports 2.1 million jobs in the US. The lawsuit was filed in June 2019 by developers who claimed Apple had an “abusive monopoly” in the iOS App Store and in-app distribution service.

The news: The number of marketing job listings related to creators has surged 4,645 times since 2018, peaking at 92,900 positions earlier this year—and Amazon was the single largest job poster, with 40 active roles as of May 2021, according to Thinknum data cited by The Information. That beats out social media companies like Facebook, ByteDance, and Google, which all cracked the top 10.

LinkedIn was facing intense competition in the Chinese job-seeking app market with homegrown competitors like Zhaopin, MaiMai, Chinahr, and 51job.com. More on this: LinkedIn joins a long line of Western internet companies that have either stopped doing business in China, or were blocked outright.

Meanwhile, many tech workers looking to change jobs are seeking more flexibility around remote work per Fast Company. Twitter closed its San Francisco and New York offices due to the current surge. The company announced Wednesday that they are pausing future office reopenings after considering CDC guidelines.

An October 2020 Telus Survey revealed that 90% of remote workers would jump ship for another job that prioritizes their mental health, for instance. So, it makes sense telemental health providers like Talkspace have markedly expanded their employer rosters over the last year:.

With the $70 million raise, the insurtech will further gamify the industry, and a recent uptick in online searches for life insurance and a need for better employee benefits can increase growth.

A Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll found some 39% of US adults would consider quitting their jobs if their employers weren’t flexible about remote work, and a Protocol survey of tech workers found that 75% of all respondents wanted their employers to let them work remotely indefinitely.

But the expansion of the creator economy is gradually making “creator” as a job title more feasible, as the new monetization options are opening the door for many up-and-coming creators to get their businesses off the ground and grow their channel.

There are a lot of influencers who just take a check; they don't necessarily do a great job, and they're not committed to making it a mutually beneficial scenario. But when there is less restraint [from the client] and I can simply do what I have done to make my following [so high], it always does better.” —Sean O’Donnell, an Instagram creator focusing on fashion and photography.

Search still accounts for the greater proportion of computing products and consumer electronics spending, but display has been eating into that total. Last year, in particular, growth in display spend was double that of search at 58.4% and 28.2%, respectively.

If the company is no longer seen as rapidly growing by job candidates, it could become more difficult to attract top talent. While the departures could mean nothing, they could also signal that many executives feel that now is a good time to leave.