One other yr means one other time during which many within the HR area flip in the direction of California, which has a popularity for intensive employment legal guidelines and laws not seen in different states.
“All people is aware of California tends to have these new legal guidelines which can be difficult, to say the least,” Michele Miller, chair of Cozen O’Connor’s west coast labor and employment regulation division, stated Dec. 11 through the agency’s annual digital occasion on California labor regulation adjustments.
2026 will give the state’s employers a lot to wrap their heads round, from new legal guidelines on office notices and paid sick go away to yet one more minimal wage replace.
‘Know Your Rights’ discover necessities and designated emergency contacts (SB 294)
By Feb. 1, 2026, employers should present a stand-alone written discover to workers with particulars on an entire host of classes resembling staff’ compensation, immigration inspections, union organizing, concerted exercise and constitutional rights inside the context of regulation enforcement interactions. The discover should be supplied to present workers yearly and to new workers on the time of rent.
“The excellent news is that employers should not tasked with arising with this discover,” stated Elena Hillman, member of the agency at Cozen. The regulation duties the state’s labor commissioner with offering a template discover that may be modified for an employer’s office. The commissioner additionally should revise the template as wanted.
Moreover, by March 30, 2026, employers should present workers the chance to call an emergency contact for conditions during which the worker is arrested or detained at work. Employers could be required to inform the contact if they’ve “precise data” of an worker’s arrest or detention throughout work hours or efficiency of job duties.
Schooling and coaching info requests (SB 513)
California authorised laws increasing the definition of “personnel information” to incorporate schooling and coaching information. Hillman stated this consists of information for necessary harassment and discrimination coaching in addition to these associated to abilities coaching, software program or gear coaching or core competency coaching — although the statute doesn’t present an exhaustive record.
Employers within the state usually had been already required to maintain such information, however the brand new regulation requires that they be included in an worker’s personnel file. Present regulation permits workers to request their personnel file, and employers have 30 days to supply the information upon request.
Clarifications on paid sick go away for crime victims (AB 406)
In 2024, California handed AB 2499, which permitted lined workers to take day off from work to hunt safety as a sufferer of qualifying violent acts, or if a member of the family is a sufferer. However the regulation was complicated, Hillman stated, and the state legislature revisited it this previous yr with AB 406.
The brand new regulation clarifies that employers should present day off for workers who’re themselves victims of violence or have members of the family who’re victims, together with to attend judicial proceedings associated to lined crimes. It states that paid sick go away could also be used to attend such proceedings. AB 406 additionally expands the record of lined crimes.
Office transition info notices underneath Cal-WARN (SB 617)
Efficient Jan. 1, 2026, the state’s California Employee Adjustment and Retraining Act, also referred to as Cal-WARN, would require employers to supply an expanded discover within the occasion of a lined mass layoff, termination, plant closure or facility relocation.
Particularly, the discover should reply whether or not the employer is coordinating with a neighborhood workforce growth board, or an analogous entity, in order that affected staff have entry to a useful resource that may assist them via the transition. The discover should be included no matter whether or not the employer plans to take action and should embody a useful electronic mail handle and phone quantity for the native board with an outline of its speedy response actions.
The discover additionally should present workers an outline of CalFresh, the state’s meals help program, in addition to a hyperlink to the CalFresh web site.
Paid household go away for a ‘designated individual’ (SB 590)
Efficient July 1, 2028, California’s paid household go away program will permit workers to pick one “designated individual” whose critical sickness they might be capable of take paid go away to look after. The individual should be both associated to the worker by blood or have an affiliation with the worker that’s the equal of a household relationship. Staff should attest to the character of the connection underneath penalty of perjury.
‘Pay scale’ definition replace and pay information reporting deadline extension to Could 2027 (SB 642, SB 464)
The Golden State made a number of updates to its pay fairness legal guidelines. California is one in all a number of states with pay transparency necessities, and Gov. Gavin Newsom authorised an modification requiring that the pay ranges employers publish to the general public be a “good religion estimate” of the wage or hourly wages they anticipate to pay upon rent.
SB 642 additionally updates the language of the state’s gender-based pay discrimination prohibition to make clear that pay could not unlawfully differ between workers “of one other intercourse” quite than the “reverse intercourse.” Individually, the regulation’s statute of limitations has been prolonged to a few years and clarifies that the restoration interval for workers is about at six years.
A separate regulation, SB 464, amended California’s pay information reporting necessities. Efficient Jan. 1, 2027, the variety of job classes for which employers should report demographic, pay and hours labored information shall be expanded from 10 to 23. The primary information assortment affected by the change would happen in Could 2027, Hillman stated, so employers have about one yr to organize.
Protections for staff displaced by COVID-19 (AB 858)
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the state enacted a regulation to require employers to supply details about job openings to workers laid off on or after March 4, 2020, for causes associated to the pandemic. Employers additionally had been required to supply positions to such workers utilizing a desire system outlined by the regulation.
The provisions for the COVID-19-era displacement regulation had been set to run out Dec. 31, however ABA 858 extends the protections via 2026, ending Jan. 1, 2027.
Restrictions on requiring workers to pay employers again sure money owed (AB 692)
Efficient Jan. 1, 2026, California employers are prohibited from implementing contractual necessities that workers pay the employer, a coaching supplier or debt collector for sure money owed within the occasion the worker is terminated, with some exceptions.
The regulation is geared toward eliminating restrictions on worker mobility and isn’t retroactive, stated Nicole Perkin, additionally a member of the agency at Cozen. The record of exceptions consists of objects resembling contracts associated to tuition prices for a transferable credential in addition to contracts for the receipt of discretionary or unearned financial cost that’s not tied to job efficiency.
With a view to qualify for both of the 2 above exemptions, such contracts should be separate from any employment contract and should meet a wide range of different necessities, Perkin added. Notably, reimbursement can solely be required within the occasion that the worker chooses to voluntarily resign, or if the employer elects to fireplace the worker for misconduct.
“Be sure that human assets or whoever goes to be implementing this understands the definition of misconduct and that that’s going to be a excessive burden and arduous to fulfill,” Perkin stated. “Your run of the mill termination might be unlikely to fulfill that.”
Bias mitigation coaching replace (SB 303)
An worker’s evaluation, testing, admission or acknowledgement of a private bias made in good religion and solicited as a part of a bias mitigation coaching doesn’t, by itself, represent illegal discrimination, in keeping with the not too long ago enacted SB 303. The regulation individually affirms that bias mitigation coaching, by itself, isn’t illegal discrimination.
These provisions are noteworthy given the shift on range, fairness and inclusion insurance policies on the federal stage; the U.S. Division of Justice particularly recognized race-segregated coaching as illegal discrimination in a doc printed final July.
Wage adjustments
California’s minimal wage is to be set at $16.90 per hour starting Jan. 1, 2026, although employers ought to needless to say native governments could have set even increased charges, Hillman stated. Moreover, the state’s annual wage threshold for extra time pay exemption will improve to $70,304 — almost double that of the federal Honest Labor Requirements Act.
