Study finds workplace drug testing is a thing of the past

Through Javier Hasse

According to a study by Search Diagnostics Inc.Drug use among American employees, as measured by the percentage of employees who tested positive in urine drug tests, beat a 14-year high in 2018, reaching 4.4%.

Cannabis remains the most popular substance, with 2.8% of all employees tested showing positive results.

The news caused addiction experts at the American Addiction Centers to wonder about the impact this might have on pre-employment drug testing among professionals. In search of an answer, they conducted an analysis of job postings on the popular website Glassdoor. They tried to determine which types of jobs were most likely to involve drug testing and regular drug screening requirements.

Overall, remarkably few jobs disclose requiring a drug test prior to confirmation of employment or during employment. On average, only 1.47% of US job postings mention requiring a pre-employment drug test.

Even fewer jobs say they require regular drug screenings during employment. On average, only 0.66% of job postings mention regular drug testing.

Some of the industries most likely to require pre-employment drug testing were:

• government
• Healthcare & Hospitals
• manufacturing
• automobile
• Transportation & Logistics
• private security
• Aerospace & Defense
• construction
• information technology
• Education & Schools

Some of the industries most likely to require regular drug screenings were:

• Healthcare & Hospitals
• Transportation & Logistics
• government
• automobile
• manufacturing
• information technology
• insurance
• Biotech & Pharma
• property
• nonprofit

“Overall, we were surprised to see more employers not being ahead of the curve with sobriety expectations of their employees, particularly in some of the more manual fields like manufacturing or construction. What’s more, incredibly few clerical jobs talk about drug testing in their job postings,” experts from the American Addiction Centers said during an exclusive interview.

Although the average number of drug tests is surprisingly low, there are significant differences between states.

Still, only one city in the country has a number above 2.4%: In Arlington, TX, nearly 7% of jobs require a pre-employment drug screening. At the other end of the spectrum was New York City, with just 0.46% of all jobs requiring screening.

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A very surprising finding from the data was that Omaha, NE had absolutely no jobs that required regular drug screening according to their job postings. However, according to a study earlier this year, the city’s residents have the highest rates of drug abuse in the country. It seems contradictory that a city that has a pronounced drug abuse problem would have absolutely no job postings addressing that problem.

But beyond city-specific data, one thing is clear: drug testing before or during employment is a thing of the past.

This article was originally published on Forbes/Benzinga and republished here with permission.