The problem is that what the OP describes is not larceny or embezzlement in any sense of those terms. A larceny would be when I take your property from you with the intent of depriving you of it permanently. Embezzlement is when you have given me your property, typically as an employee, with instructions that I do a certain thing with it, but I use it for my own purposes, with the intent to deprive you of it permanently. Think cash in the till. Yes, it was given to the employee voluntarily, but for a designated purpose, not to stuff in the employee’s pockets.
Illegally withholding wages or making you work off the clock and such things are not those terms because the employer never took that money from you nor were they given the money by you for a certain purpose. It was always the employer’s money to begin with. Yes, they have created a contractual obligation to pay you for services rendered, but that is the very definition of a civil contract violation and not any form of larceny or embezzlement. “Wage theft” is a shorthand but legally inaccurate term.
You are not embezzling if you fail to pay your credit card bill, right?
It would suck if every employer in the country was risking arrest if they made a mistake in payroll, whereas theft and embezzlement have easy definitions and can be avoided.