A new study shows that those with tobacco habits are less likely to get jobs and earn less at the jobs they do have.
The relatively small study focused on 250 people seeking jobs in the San Francisco area, half of whom were smokers. The non-smokers were twice as likely to land gigs a year into the study.
Now, the profile of the average smoker will explain much of the reason that smokers are less likely to get hired or make good money. Those with daily cigarette habits are more likely to be poor and they have a lower average educational attainment than non-smokers.
Recommended For You
But the study apparently controlled for a number of factors that are linked to employment and income, such as criminal record, gender and whether the participants had access to housing and reliable transportation. Even after all of that, smokers were still 24 percent less likely to get hired.
Judith Prochaska, the Stanford University professor who led the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, told NBC that hers was not the first study to show causality between smoking and poor job prospects. For instance, a much larger study of 52,000 construction workers found that the smokers among them were about twice as likely to be unemployed.
Considering that smoking cessation is one of the most common wellness initiatives that major employers spend big bucks to offer these days, it's not shocking that many bosses would prefer to avoid smokers in the workplace. They cost more money to insure, they are more likely to get sick and of course they spend a certain amount of time taking cigarette breaks.
But perhaps even more significant to employers than the practical downside of smoker employees is the stigma that is increasingly attached to the habit, which is in steep decline.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
