Employers Struggle To Find Workers Who Can Pass A Drug Test

HughPickens.com writes: Jackie Calmes writes in the NYT that all over the country, employers say they see a disturbing downside of tighter labor markets as they try to rebuild from the worst recession since the Depression: the struggle to find workers who can pass a pre-employment drug test. The hurdle partly stems from the growing ubiquity of drug testing, at corporations with big human resources departments, in industries like trucking where testing is mandated by federal law for safety reasons, and increasingly at smaller companies. But data suggests employers' difficulties also reflect an increase in the use of drugs, especially marijuana -- employers' main gripe -- and also heroin and other opioid drugs much in the news. Data on the scope of the problem is sketchy because figures on job applicants who test positive for drugs miss the many people who simply skip tests they cannot pass. But Quest Diagnostics, which has compiled employer-testing data since 1988, documented a 10% increase in one year in the percentage of American workers who tested positive for illicit drugs -- up to 4.7 percent in 2014 from 4.3 percent in 2013.

With the software industry already plagued by a shortage of skilled workers, especially female programmers, some software companies think now would be the wrong time to institute drug testing for new employees, a move that would further limit the available talent pool. "The acceptability of at least marijuana has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years," says Carl Erickson. "If the standard limits those that have used marijuana in the last week, you're surely going to be limiting your pool of applicants." Erickson's decision not to drug test stems from a low risk of workplace injury for his workers combined with an unwillingness to pry into the personal lives of his employees. "My perspective on this is if they want to share their recreational habits with me, that's their prerogative, but I'm sure as hell not going to put them in a position to have to do it."

Comments

Re: I guess there's one sensible solution to this

[Karmashock]

So... sharing an opinion, observation, belief, etc is not acceptable unless I'm prepared to bow to the first gaggle of idiots that contradicts it with arguments EVERYONE is already aware of and I've demonstrably found unconvincing?

Look, I have my life experiences. I've seen a lot of dodgy behavior from people and the correlation between said behavior and drug use is very very high. Even if A doesn't cause B... in my experience the correlation between the factors is so strong that it doesn't matter in practice.

I'm not a court of law. I am not telling you what to do or how to live your life. You do what you want to do.

I don't find people that use the galaxy of ever expanding recreational drugs to be reliable. They are frequently emotionally immature, have short attention spans, poor memories, a poor attention to detail, and a frequently shitty attitude when it comes to getting things done.

My personal anecdotal experience leads me to this general conclusion. Could I be wrong? My life experiences say otherwise. What could you possibly say in the face of that?

Each of us personally trusts these experiences more than anything else. You trust yours and I wouldn't fault you for whatever that is... what else do we as individuals have to go on here in our lives? In my life, this is what I've seen. Maybe I'm wrong. It works for me.

By all means, think I'm a shit if you like. I won't hold it against you. I've been burned and seen friends burned too many times by people that were off their nut on one drug or another. I don't have any patience for it anymore. You do what you want to do. I can't stop you and I wouldn't presume to stop you. By the same token, I would naturally expect you to afford me the same opportunity to do what I feel is best for myself and those I am responsible for managing.

We all do what we think is reasonable. To me, this seems like the most reasonable thing to do.