Unemployed Smokers Less Likely to Be Hired Than Nonsmokers

Study: Smokers prioritize tobacco purchases over job aids

By Kathy Gurchiek
4/14/2016 - SHRM

Smokers who are unemployed and actively seeking a job are more likely than nonsmokers to see their chances of being hired go up in smoke.

A study from Stanford University Department of Medicine, published April 11 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, found that after 12 months of unemployment, the average re-hire rate of smokers was significantly lower than that of nonsmokers. In addition, the smokers who were hired were paid less on average, said Judith J. Prochaska, Ph.D, associate professor of medicine at Stanford. She has a master’s degree in public health and is the paper’s lead author.

While previous studies have shown an association between smoking and unemployment in the U.S. and Europe, the new research is believed to be the first to track the ability to find a new job with smoking status, according to Prochaska. Among the 217 people who completed the 12-month study, 60 nonsmokers had landed a job vs. 29 smokers who had done so. All had been unemployed when the study was initiated, and recruited from two employment development departments in the San Francisco Bay area.

The study was designed so that people in both groups “were as similar as possible in terms of the information we had on their employment records and prospects for employment,” Michael Baiocchi, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Stanford Medicine, stated in a news release. He oversaw the data analyses and co-wrote the paper.

Smokers Take Financial Hit

The study found that smokers “were paid significantly less” than nonsmokers when they were re-employed—an average of $5 less per hour, or more than $8,300 annually for those working 32 hours per week.

“Not only does smoking harm your health, but it can adversely affect your financial well-being,” Prochaska said.

That includes prioritizing tobacco over expenditures that could be helpful to a job seeker, according to the findings. Smokers were asked how they prioritized their discretionary spending.

“At the top of the list was tobacco,” Prochaska said. “That was above a number of things that would help them with a job search,” such as gasoline and bus fare, new clothing, grooming needs, dental care and cellular telephone service. “It seems that tobacco is such a strong addictive it ... can hurt [them] in the job search,” she told SHRM Online.

It’s not clear if smoking is the cause or the result of unemployment.

“You don’t know if smokers have a harder time finding work or if smokers are more likely to lose their jobs—or that when nonsmokers lose their jobs, they become stressed and start to smoke,” Prochaska said in a news release.

The study did not survey hiring managers, but Prochaska told SHRM Online that the research team heard anecdotally “that if [hiring managers] smell tobacco smoke on job seekers, they know that’s going to put [the job seeker] at a disadvantage. I’m sure that will depend some on the job sector” in which the person interviews, she added.

In 2013, Gallup estimated that workers who smoke cost the U.S. economy about $278 billion annually in lost productivity from absences related to smoking-related illnesses and extra health care costs. And NPR reported that same year that employees who smoke cost employers $5,800 per smoker per year—and most of that is from smoke breaks.

Employers also may want to distance themselves from smokers because smoking could run counter to an organization’s mission. In 2011, for example,USA Today reported that health insurer Humana announced it would no longer hire workers in Arizona who smoked or used other tobacco products.

A February 2014 article—Holy Smoke! Employers Refusing to Hire Smokers, published by Goldberg Segalla’s Professional Liability Practice Group—looked at the trend of employers considering “no smoker” employment policies.

“The legality of nonsmoker policies may depend on state law,” the article noted. “No federal law protects smokers or entitles them to equal protections with regard to hiring, promotions and the like because the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] doesn’t recognize smokers as a protected class.”

The Stanford report suggested that employment development departments would be a good setting to reach tobacco users and “is worth testing” as a way to try to increase smokers’ hiring success and well-being.

Prochaska said a follow-up study is in progress to test the hypothesis that individuals who are unemployed and who successfully quit smoking have an easier time getting hired. Another is planned that will look at wellness/smoking cessation initiatives and whether there is an implicit and explicit bias toward smokers among employers.

Kathy Gurchiek is the associate editor at HR News. Follow her @SHRMwriter.