More employees have shorter tenures at employers: The Employee Benefit Research Institute's newest study, "Trends in Employee Tenure, 1983–2018," finds the percentage of wage and salary workers ages 20 or older that had one year or less of tenure with their current employer increased from 17.4% in 2010 to 20.5% in 2018. Median tenure of all wage and salary workers ages 25 or older fell from 5.5 years in 2014 to 5.0 years in 2018, a time period in which the unemployment rate reached historical lows.  Public sector tenure has declined more significantly. The median tenure of public sector workers ages 20 or older has fallen from 8.3 years in 2012 to 7.0 years in 2018. The percentage of these workers who had 25 or more years of tenure was also found to have decreased from 9.8% in 2008 to 9.0% in 2018.  Source: EBRI 2/28/19

Women apply to less jobs but get hired more often: Women and men find jobs differently. Per LinkedIn research, it turns out that while women’s journey to getting a new job starts off very similarly to men’s, it diverges when it comes to applying to the job or to being proactively recruited. Almost 90% of both women and men are open to hearing about new opportunities from recruiters and their network long before they are applying to jobs. And once they decide it’s truly the time to get proactive and submit job applications, both genders do their homework. On average, they browse over 40 jobs per candidate and spend a similar amount of time researching employers before applying. While both genders browse jobs similarly, they apply to them differently. Research shows that in order to apply for a job, women feel they need to meet 100% of the criteria while men usually apply after meeting about 60%. The good news is that when women do apply to a job, they are 16% more likely than men to get hired. In fact, if the role is more senior than their current position, that number goes up to 18%.  Source: LinkedIn 3/5/19

IBM apologizes for insensitive job application:  IBM apologized after one of its recruitment web pages gave applicants the option of using racially insensitive terms to identify themselves. The process took job seekers to a drop-down menu that included “yellow” and “mulatto” with Caucasian, black, and other options.  The IT services company said the application had been automatically imported from job postings in countries where governments still use the classifications in census or other demographic data. However, this particular job, an interaction design internship, was based in the United States.  IBM has since switched to the U.S. requirements for demographic categories.  Source:  Washington Post 2/27/19

Disability harassment a legal cause of action: The 2nd Circuit joined several other circuits in holding that the ADA contemplates hostile work environment claims. The court said that "because the ADA echoes and expressly refers to Title VII, and because the two statutes have the same purpose — the prohibition of illegal discrimination in employment — it follows that disabled Americans should be able to assert hostile work environment claims under the ADA, as can those protected by Title VII."  Source:  HR Dive 3/13/19

Non-religionists are a protected class in Portland, Oregon: An amendment to the civil rights code of Portland, Oregon, extends protections against discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations to atheists, agnostics, and other “non-believers.” Religious facilities are expressly exempt.  The Portland City Code, chapter 23.01, already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, and national origin. The amendment, unanimously approved by the Portland City Council, will go into effect on March 29, 2019. The new ordinance amends Portland’s civil rights ordinances to include “non-religion” as a protected class. It also broadens the definition of “religion” used in the City Code, clarifying that it “expressly includes non-religion, such as atheism, agnosticism, and non-belief in God or gods as has been recognized by the courts.”  Portland is the second city to include non-religionists.  Madison Wisconsin was the first.  Source: Jackson Lewis 2/28/19

W-4 now usable for reporting new hires:  Under federal law, new hires must be reported within 20 days of the date of hire, or, if submitting electronically or by magnetic tape, two monthly transmissions not less than 12 or more than 16 days apart. Caution: States may establish shorter reporting timeframes. Therefore, employers should check with their state reporting agencies for specific deadlines.   New hire reports must contain seven data elements:  Employer name, Employer address, Employer identification number (EIN), Employee name, Employee address, Employee Social Security number (SSN), and Employee date of hire. Federal law specifically provides that new hire reports should, “to the extent practicable, be made on a W–4 form.” However, until recently, it has not been practical to use Form W-4 standing alone because prior versions of the form did not contain one key data element: the employee’s date of hire. However, starting with the 2018 Form W-4 and continuing with the 2019 version, the IRS has added a new field (Box 9) to Form W-4 for recording an employee’s first date of employment. Therefore, employers can use Form W-4 without alterations to satisfy the federal reporting requirements. Source:  CCH 3/18/19

Be careful of “work made for hire” clauses in independent contractor agreements:  Intellectual property clauses often say that anything created by the independent contractor is a “work made for hire,” which would mean that the company — not the individual — owns the copyright. These clauses will also typically say that anything not deemed a “work made for hire” is assigned to the company. This is supposed to be a belt-and-suspenders way to ensure that the company owns the intellectual property created by the independent contractor. This clause can turn a contractor into an employee, especially in California. California law says that if a contract with an individual includes a “work made for hire” clause, that individual is a statutory employee for purposes of California unemployment law, workers compensation law, and aspects of employment law. A company that fails to comply with unemployment, workers comp, and other state employment laws may be subject to penalties and litigation.  Source: Baker Hostetler “Who is My Employee” Blog 3/18/19