Host: Jeff Hayden, certified criminal law specialist, California Board of Legal Specialization, State Bar of California. Jeff welcomes employment law specialists: -- Margaret Grover, Esq., Partner, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP, Oakland, CA. Maggie is a 30-year attorney practicing employment law and member of the Labor and Employment Section of the California Lawyers Association (CLA). -- Ellen Mendelson, Esq., San Francisco, CA. The law office of Ellen A Mendelson focuses on representing public and other employees. With over 25 years experience, Ellen is a member of the Labor and Employment Section of the CLA. -- Douglas Robbins, partner in Wood, Robbins LLP, San Francisco, California. Wood Robbins focuses their Employment Law practice in three areas of Employment Litigation: Trade Secret Litigation; Misclassification (Independent Contractor/Employee) Litigation; and Wage & Hour Litigation. Douglas is a member of the Board of Directors of the San Mateo County Bar Association.

About 17 million people have applied for unemployment benefits in the U.S. in recent weeks. It's an astonishing number that's nearly 10 times what the system has ever handled so quickly. But, by one estimate , that money is still not flowing to about half of those people who desperately need it. And others are only getting a trickle of what they should be receiving. Many people have been out of a job for a month now. That's a long time to be without your income in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. "It's really intense and it's really frightening," says Nicolena Loshonkohl, a hair stylist NPR has been checking in with in Roanoke, Va. She's a single mom with a 2-year-old daughter. As a regular employee at a local salon, she says it was pretty easy to file for unemployment online. And she's now started to get payments. Loshonkohl feels fortunate about that. But so far, she's only receiving $340 a week. And that doesn't cover her rent, health insurance, food and other basic costs of

There's a call Laura Jean Truman is dreading, and she's convinced it's just a matter of time before it comes. Truman, who's a server at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta, says the source of her angst is the fear that sometime in the next few weeks her boss is going to call and say it's time to go back to work, putting her in the position of having to make a choice between her safety and being able to pay the bills that continue to arrive despite the coronavirus. "Right now, everyone who is not working at restaurants is able to be on unemployment," she told NPR. "But once restaurants decide to open, and if we decide that we don't feel safe going back into those restaurants, we then are no longer eligible for unemployment because then we have a job opportunity that we're turning down," Truman explained. "It's a tremendously scary thing to have to think about," she said. The predicament is one in which millions of people receiving state unemployment benefits along with federal dollars from the

Updated at 8:38 a.m. ET The telephone lines are still jammed at the nation's unemployment offices. Another 3.8 million people filed claims for jobless benefits last week, according to the Labor Department . While that's down from the previous week's 4.4 million, a staggering 30.3 million have applied for unemployment in the six weeks since the coronavirus began taking a wrecking ball to the U.S. job market. That's roughly one out of five people who had a job in February. The pandemic has cut a wide swath of destruction through the economy, as restaurants, retailers and businesses of all kinds closed their doors in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Don't see the graphic above? Click here. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found half the people surveyed had either lost a job or had their hours reduced because of the pandemic and the aggressive public health measures to contain it. The sudden job losses are all the more striking after a long period of record low unemployment, in

Updated at 11:43 a.m. ET The Labor Department delivered a historically bad employment report Friday, showing 20.5 million jobs lost last month as the nation locked down against the coronavirus. The jobless rate soared to 14.7% — the highest level since the Great Depression. The highest monthly job loss before this was 2 million in 1945, as the nation began to demobilize after World War II. The worst monthly job loss during the Great Recession was 800,000 in March 2009. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. Unemployment was 4.4% in March as the coronavirus began to take hold in the U.S. It approached 25% during the Great Depression and remained elevated until World War II. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. The carnage was felt across industries in April. With most travel shut down, leisure and hospitality jobs fell by 7.6 million. The retail and health care sectors each dropped by 2.1 million. Manufacturing lost 1.3 million and government jobs fell by 980

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit DAVID GREENE, HOST: Often, a new monthly jobs report is of interest, you know, mostly to economists and policymakers. The one coming out today could be much more significant. NOEL KING, HOST: Right. Because of COVID-19, we could see the highest unemployment rate in this country since the Great Depression. GREENE: And let's talk about this moment with NPR's Scott Horsley. Hi, Scott. SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning, David. GREENE: So how ugly do we think these numbers are going to be? HORSLEY: Very ugly. To put this in some perspective, David, the worst monthly job loss we saw during the Great Recession, the financial crisis, was 800,000. This morning's report is going to show job losses in the millions, maybe as many as 20 million. And as painful as that is, it's still not going to tell the full story of the economic wreckage that the coronavirus pandemic has been causing. GREENE: Why not? HORSLEY: Well, a couple of reasons. This report is

Updated at 11:43 a.m. ET The Labor Department delivered a historically bad employment report Friday, showing 20.5 million jobs lost last month as the nation locked down against the coronavirus. The jobless rate soared to 14.7% — the highest level since the Great Depression. The highest monthly job loss before this was 2 million in 1945, as the nation began to demobilize after World War II. The worst monthly job loss during the Great Recession was 800,000 in March 2009. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. Unemployment was 4.4% in March as the coronavirus began to take hold in the U.S. It approached 25% during the Great Depression and remained elevated until World War II. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. The carnage was felt across industries in April. With most travel shut down, leisure and hospitality jobs fell by 7.6 million. The retail and health care sectors each dropped by 2.1 million. Manufacturing lost 1.3 million and government jobs fell by 980

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit NOEL KING, HOST: The news from the Labor Department this morning is staggering - 20.5 million jobs, that's how much the U.S. lost last month. The unemployment rate is now at 14.7%. By way of comparison, in February, the unemployment rate in this country was about 3.5%. This is the worst it's been since 1940. What does this mean as we move forward, and can we learn anything from the past? With me now to help answer that, Heidi Shierholz, who's an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and Claudia Goldin, who's an economic historian and a professor of economics at Harvard. Good morning to you both. HEIDI SHIERHOLZ: Good morning. CLAUDIA GOLDIN: Good morning. KING: Heidi, let me start with you. We're looking at job losses of, as I said, more than 20 million, with unemployment pushing toward 15%. Which of those numbers is more helpful to understanding how we are doing? SHIERHOLZ: They're both useful, but the 20 million is more - it gives more of

Updated at 11:43 a.m. ET The Labor Department delivered a historically bad employment report Friday, showing 20.5 million jobs lost last month as the nation locked down against the coronavirus. The jobless rate soared to 14.7% — the highest level since the Great Depression. The highest monthly job loss before this was 2 million in 1945, as the nation began to demobilize after World War II. The worst monthly job loss during the Great Recession was 800,000 in March 2009. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. Unemployment was 4.4% in March as the coronavirus began to take hold in the U.S. It approached 25% during the Great Depression and remained elevated until World War II. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. The carnage was felt across industries in April. With most travel shut down, leisure and hospitality jobs fell by 7.6 million. The retail and health care sectors each dropped by 2.1 million. Manufacturing lost 1.3 million and government jobs fell by 980

As Washington grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims — more than 100,000 last week — the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits.

About 14,800 initial unemployment claims by bartenders were filed from March 8 through April 25, which closely matches the number of people estimated to work as bartenders in Washington in the second quarter of 2020.

As Washington grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims — more than 100,000 last week — the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits.

This series of charts provides weekly data on how the Seattle-area economy is doing during the coronavirus crisis.

For the week ending May 2, the state received 109,167 initial claims for unemployment insurance, down almost 22% from the prior week, according to U.S. Labor Department figures released Thursday morning.

As Washington grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims — more than 100,000 last week — the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits.

As Washington grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims — more than 100,000 last week — the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits.

NEW YORK (AP) — The record unemployment rate reported on Friday captured the pain of a nation where tens of millions of jobs suddenly vanished, devastating the economy and forcing President Donald Trump to overcome historic headwinds to win a second term. Just a few short months ago, Trump planned to campaign for reelection on […]

For the week ending May 2, the state received 109,167 initial claims for unemployment insurance, down almost 22% from the prior week, according to U.S. Labor Department figures released Thursday morning.

About 14,800 initial unemployment claims by bartenders were filed from March 8 through April 25, which closely matches the number of people estimated to work as bartenders in Washington in the second quarter of 2020.

This series of charts provides weekly data on how the Seattle-area economy is doing during the coronavirus crisis.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 3.2 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the business shutdowns caused by the viral outbreak deepened the worst U.S. economic catastrophe in decades. Roughly 33.5 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the seven weeks since the coronavirus began forcing millions of companies to close […]

For the week ending May 2, the state received 109,167 initial claims for unemployment insurance, down almost 22% from the prior week, according to U.S. Labor Department figures released Thursday morning.

The staggering losses are more than double what the nation experienced during the 2007-09 crisis, which used to be described as the harshest economic situation most people ever confronted.

About 14,800 initial unemployment claims by bartenders were filed from March 8 through April 25, which closely matches the number of people estimated to work as bartenders in Washington in the second quarter of 2020.

As Washington grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims — more than 100,000 last week — the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits.

The Labor Department is expected to report a very bad jobless report. The Justice Department drops a case against an ex-Trump adviser. And, an update on the death of an unarmed black man in Georgia.

What do the latest unemployment rates mean for the U.S. economy? NPR's Noel King speaks with Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and Claudia Goldin of Harvard University.

The Labor Department is expected to report a very bad jobless report. The Justice Department drops a case against an ex-Trump adviser. And, an update on the death of an unarmed black man in Georgia.

U.S. employers shed a record number of jobs in April, as the unemployment rate climbed to the highest since the Great Depression. The coronavirus crisis has locked down much of the economy.

What do the latest unemployment rates mean for the U.S. economy? NPR's Noel King speaks with Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and Claudia Goldin of Harvard University.

NPR's global health reporter answers listener questions about how the coronavirus is mutating.

The jobless rate in New Zealand came in at a seasonally adjusted 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020, Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday.

Private sector employment nosedived in the month of April, according to a report released by payroll processor ADP on Wednesday. The report said private sector employment plunged by 20.236 million jobs in April after slumping by a revised 149,000 jobs in May.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with economist William Rodgers about the spiraling U.S. job losses due to the pandemic. The unemployment rate is now the worst since the Great Depression.

Reflecting the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to contain it, the Labor Department released a report on Friday showing a record nosedive in employment in the U.S. in the month of April.

Reflecting the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to contain it, the Labor Department released a report on Friday showing a record nosedive in employment in the U.S. in the month of April. The report said non-farm payroll employment plummeted by 20.5 million jobs in April after tumbling by a revised 870,000 jobs in March.

The coronavirus crisis has sent US unemployment surging to 14.7 per cent, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was assuring Americans that the only thing to fear was fear itself.

Somewhere between 9.5 per cent and 44 per cent of the entire workforce is now really jobless as a result of the government-mandated lockdowns of the economy.

Unemployment in one Queensland region soars to more than double the state figure as an expert warns it's the 'calm before the storm'.

Walgett Cafe 64 closes its doors due to dwindling income revenue caused by coronavirus.

Youth unemployment has soared as a result of the coronavirus, prompting some young people to start their own businesses to try and claw their way back into the workforce.

A country hospital in South Australia is offering free, local training in the hopes of raising the status and the quality of its aged care workforce.

A successful WA program turning job seekers into beekeepers looks likely to fold when federal funding runs out in 2018.

Some regional areas of Queensland see unemployment rates skyrocket above 14 per cent with experts warning it will get worse if the Government doesn't step in.

The USBLN 2010 Annual Leadership Awards highlighted employer achievements in seven categories, including supplier diversity and market share. IBM was among those honored, receiving the "Employee Resource Group (ERG) of the Year" award for exemplary strategies to advance disability inclusiveness in the workplace, marketplace and supply chain.

The American economy plunged deeper into crisis last month, losing 20.5 million jobs as the unemployment rate jumped to 14.7%, the worst devastation since the Great Depression.The Labor Department's monthly report Friday provided the clearest picture yet of the breadth and depth of the economic damage -- and how swiftly it spread -- as the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.Job losses have encompassed the entire economy, affecting every major industry. Areas like leisure and hospitality had the biggest losses in April, but even health care shed more than 1 million jobs. Low-wage workers, including many women and members of racial and ethnic minorities, have been hit especially hard."It's literally off the charts," said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. "What would typically take months or quarters to play out in a recession happened in a matter of weeks this time."From almost any vantage point, it was a bleak report. The share of the adult population with a job, at 51.3%, was the lowest on record. Nearly 11 million people reported working part time because they couldn't find full-time work, up from about 4 million before the pandemic.If anything, the numbers probably understate the economic distress.Millions more Americans have filed unemployment claims since the data was collected in mid-April. What's more, because of issues with the way workers are classified, the Labor Department said the actual unemployment rate last month might have been closer to 20%.It remains possible that the recovery, too, will be swift, and that as the pandemic retreats, businesses that were fundamentally healthy before the virus will reopen, rehire and return more or less to normal. The one bright spot in Friday's report was that nearly 80% of the unemployed said they had been temporarily laid off and expected to return to their jobs in the coming months.President Donald Trump endorsed this view in an interview Friday morning on Fox News. "Those jobs will all be back, and they'll be back very soon," Trump said, "and next year we're going to have a phenomenal year."But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said that such optimism was misplaced, and that many of the jobs could not be recovered."This is going to be a hard reality," Swonk said. "These furloughs are permanent, not temporary."Many businesses have indicated that employees can work from home throughout the summer, hurting sales at downtown restaurants. Meetings and conferences have been put off as well, reducing demand at hotels and other gathering places. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more businesses will fail, deepening the downturn.The broad nature of the job cuts, too, means it will take longer for the labor market to recover than if the losses were confined to one or two areas."There is no safe place in the labor market right now," said Martha Gimbel, an economist and labor market expert at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative. "Once people are unemployed, once they've lost their jobs, once their spending has been sucked out of the economy, it takes so long to come back from that."Carrie Hines, a managing director at an advertising firm in Austin, Texas, had the kind of professional job -- adaptable to working from home -- that seemed insulated from the pandemic's effects. But her firm worked closely with companies in the airline, hotel and amusement park industries. When their business evaporated as a result of the outbreak, it was only a matter of time before Hines' firm felt the impact. She was laid off April 20."I was shocked," she said. "I've never had a gap in work since college."Hines and her husband are cutting back where they can, and they have canceled plans to send their three children to summer camp. "I never imagined this kind of job market where the entire advertising industry has been crushed," she said.The scale of the job losses last month alone far exceed the 8.7 million lost in the last recession, when unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009."I thought the Great Recession was once in a lifetime, but this is much worse," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global.The only comparable period is when unemployment reached about 25% in 1933, before the government began publishing official statistics. Then, as now, workers from a variety of backgrounds found themselves with few prospects for quickly landing a new job.The government's official definition of unemployment typically requires people to be actively looking for work, making the measure ill-suited to a crisis in which the government is encouraging people to stay home. Some 6.4 million people left the labor force entirely in April, meaning they were neither working nor looking for work.Joblessness -- by any measure -- could be even higher in the report for May, which will reflect conditions next week. Some economists say the unemployment rate should fall over the summer as people begin to return to work. Several states have begun to reopen their economies, and others are expected to do so in coming weeks.But with the virus untamed, it's not clear how quickly customers will return to businesses. And epidemiologists and economists warn that if states move too quickly, they could risk a second wave of infections, imperiling public health and the economy."That would stop people from shopping and cause austerity," Bovino said.For businesses, the uncertainty about the path of the pandemic and about consumers' response to it is making planning difficult.When Austin Ramirez heard about the coronavirus earlier this year, his initial concern was for his supply chain. Ramirez runs Husco International, a manufacturer of hydraulic and electromechanical components for cars and other equipment. The company has a factory in China and receives parts from suppliers there and around the world.By April, virtually the entire U.S. auto industry was shut down, Husco included. (The company's nonautomotive production continued at a reduced rate.) Ramirez said he didn't know when business would bounce back. His goal is to weather the storm."There's no visibility or certainty on what the future demand is going to look like," he said. "We can't build a business model that relies on there being a big recovery six months from now."While most of Husco's roughly 750 North American workers have been furloughed during the crisis, the company has mostly avoided large-scale, permanent job cuts. Ramirez said he expected that most of his workers would come back when he needs them.But particularly in industries like retail and hospitality, layoffs that were initially temporary might not remain so as bankruptcies mount and business owners confront shifts in consumer behavior.Most forecasters expect the unemployment rate to remain elevated at least through 2021, and probably longer. That means that it will be years before workers enjoy the bargaining power that was beginning to bring them faster wage gains and better benefits before the crisis.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

When surveyed, people who received universal basic income instead of regular unemployment benefits reported better financial well-being, mental health and cognitive functioning, as well as higher levels of confidence in the future.

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and benefits recipients’ mental and financial wellbeing

(California Court of Appeal) - Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. Plaintiff sued for the wrongful denial of unemployment benefits. On appeal, Plaintiff was granted unemployment benefits. On this, Plaintiff's third appeal over this controversy, the appeals court affirmed the award of attorney’s fees, but reversed and remanded because the trial court improperly limited the scope of the fees.