Workplace drug testing in U.S. slowly declining
Employers are struggling to hire workers in a tightening U.S. job market. Marijuana is now legal in nine states and Washington, D.C., meaning more than one in five American adults can eat, drink, smoke or vape as they please. The result is the slow decline of pre-employment drug tests, which for decades had been a requirement for new recruits in industries ranging from manufacturing to finance.
As of the beginning of 2018, Excellence Health Inc., a Las Vegasbased health care company with around 6,000 employees, no longer drug tests people coming to work for the pharmaceutical side of the business. It stopped testing for marijuana two years ago. “We don’t care what people do in their free time,” said Liam Meyer, a company spokesperson. “We want to help these people ...”
Last month, AutoNation Inc., the largest U.S. auto dealer, announced it would no longer refuse job applicants who tested positive for weed. The Denver Post, owned by Digital First Media, ended preemployment drug testing for all non-safety sensitive positions in September 2016.
So far, companies in states that have legalized either recreational or medicinal marijuana are leading the way on dropping drug tests. A survey last year by the Mountain States Employers Council of 609 Colorado employers found that the share of companies testing for marijuana use fell to 66 per cent, down from 77 per cent the year before.
Drug testing restricts the job pool, and in the current tight labour market, that’s having an impact on productivity and growth. In surveys done by the Federal Reserve last year, employers cited an inability by applicants to pass drug tests among reasons for difficulties in hiring. Failed tests reached an all-time high in 2017, according to data from Quest Diagnostics Inc. That’s likely to get worse as more people partake in state-legalized cannabis.
Firms are having a hard enough time hiring, with unemployment hovering around four per cent.
Pre-employment testing is no longer worth the expense in a society increasingly accepting of drug use. A Gallup poll in October found that 64 per cent of Americans favour legalization. Drug tests costs from $30 to $50 a pop, but the potential costs to an employer are far greater than the actual test.