ANDERSON – Education and soft skills are top of the list for employers in Madison County looking to hire workers.
But there’s one seemingly simple ability many employers are finding residents don’t possess: the ability to pass a drug test.
It’s a problem Jim Marroquin, recruiting director at Continental Inc., sees every day.
“Every single day we have candidates that come in and are willing to go through the application process, they do onboarding training, then they show up to take the drug test and tell us right when they are sitting there: ‘I am not going to pass the test,’” Marroquin said.
It’s a problem seen across the nation, with as many as half of all applicants in some cases failing to pass a pre-employment drug screen, according to The Fed’s Beige Book survey of the national economy.
The Fed has specifically cited employers’ inability to find sober workers as a detriment to the economy.
For Marroquin, who works with local employers to find qualified talent, each applicant who fails to pass a drug test takes up valuable time and money.
“It affects us, we have to absorb that cost, have to build that cost into our model,” he said. “In turn, that affects the prices we have to charge our customers.”
For instance, if a customer needs to hire 10 employees, Continental will screen and background check 15, to account for the five or six who won’t pass the drug screening.
“We have a large customer here in Anderson, just called yesterday and said: all your employees have to pass a drug screen, they are having such a drug issue they are going to start doing random drug testing,” Marroquin said.
The growing opioid epidemic that’s sweeping the nation along with growing marijuana use are two of the most likely culprits.
The most recent federal study on the effects of opioid abuse finds opioid abuse cost the economy $78.5 billion in 2013. Beyond the direct cost to employers, a drug test requirement can cost workers who may need a job the most – or deter them from even applying.
JoAnna Collette, director at WorkOne Anderson, said her office works with applicants to ensure they understand the importance of passing a drug test.
“Different employers have different rules. Most all the employers, if you don’t pass the drug screen, you don’t work there,” she said. “There are issues with people passing the drug screen. I really believe people are just disillusioned and disconnected.”
Marroquin, who has worked with Continental for more than 20 years, said he believes a near record low unemployment rate is equally to blame for the high number of people failing to pass a drug screen.
But as employers struggle to find people to hire that aren’t using drugs, Marroquin said he also sees employers changing their stance on drug testing.
“We are literally asking some of our customers: ‘would you be a little more flexible on the background test or screening and people are actually starting to loosen up on their requirement,” he said.
He’s quick to stress that workplace safety is paramount, but if an employee is low level and won’t be operating dangerous machinery, he can see rules loosening.
“Someone brought up a really good point to me, said I had a rough day at work, had two glasses of wine, should I not be employable; a younger generation person might have smoked half a joint to relax before they went to bed,” he said. “Does that mean the person is not a good employee, maybe this person has an excellent work history, excellent skills, just needed a little something to take the edge off.”
For Collette, changing requirements isn’t the answer. Instead, she sees training and education as the path forward.
“We wouldn’t have that conversation with an employer,” she said. “Just because someone might not be using machinery … doesn’t mean they not a danger driving to and from work; we would never have that conversation.”
At the end of the day, with low unemployment and more manufacturing jobs slated to open in Madison County soon, employers will have to find a solution soon – or positions will go unfilled.
“This is affecting day-to-day production with manufacturers, all across Anderson, every day,” Marroquin said.