What Jobs Definitely Screen for Drugs with a Urine Test?
Certain trace hormones and hormone concentrations are different in men than in women. A sophisticated test can detect these hormones and determine the sex of the person the urine came from.
A lot of different jobs perform drug screenings. However, not all of them test the same way. Some use hair tests, saliva tests, breathalyzer tests, and even perspiration tests, to screen for foreign substances. The most common, however, is the urine test. Aside from blood tests, urine is the most accurate. But blood tests are invasive and can only be performed by trained professionals. So if a workplace is really serious about screening for drugs, they’ll use a urine test.
Which workplaces are the serious ones? Which ones are most likely to use urine testing, as opposed to a more convenient but less effective method? Here are a few types of jobs that it’s fairly safe to say will drug test using urinalysis.
- Federal Employees. By law, anyone employed by the federal government must remain drug free. Therefore, all federal employees are subject to drug testing. Not all of them have to pass a pre-employment drug screening, and not all of them are tested randomly, but there must be some testing in place. However, it’s the job of each government agency to create and oversee its own testing initiative. Therefore, not all of them are required to use urine testing, specifically—but most do.
- Construction Workers. Construction sites are dangerous places. They require the operation of heavy machinery, along with other tools. Even without the influence of drugs, accidents can happen, causing serious injury and even death. So just about any construction company will use urine tests to screen thoroughly, both before employment and at regular intervals during employment, for both drugs and alcohol.
- Transportation Workers. Much like construction, transportation jobs fall under the heading “heavy machinery”—i.e. cars, trucks, buses, etc. This applies to public transportation, as well as cab drivers, truckers, train engineers, airline pilots, and more. If your job requires you to be on the road—or in the sky—and particularly if it requires you to transport other people from one place to another, it’s in the employers’ best interest to ensure you’re fully sober and not doing anything that could endanger yourself, your vehicle, or your passengers. Therefore, urine drug tests are generally fairly strictly enforced.
- Hospitality. Hotels, restaurants, bars, and other hospitality-based jobs have one of the highest rates of drug and alcohol use of any field. This is worrying to a lot of employers, who believe that drugs can make workers unpredictable when dealing with customers and guests. Therefore, random drug testing is high in the hospitality industry, and urinalysis is the preferred testing method.
- Manufacturing. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this is another industry where drug and alcohol use are fairly prevalent. However, if a worker is found to be under the influence, it can call into question the integrity and safety of the products they worked on. This may result in recalls and damage the company’s reputation, both of which are expensive situations to deal with. Therefore, urine testing is common practice in manufacturing companies.
- Software and Tech. It’s an open secret that software engineers for major tech companies often use chemical help to work long, late hours on projects for weeks at a time. In order to crack down on this sort of thing, most tech companies now require employees to undergo drug screenings with urinalysis before being hired. However, once they have the job, testing tends to be a lot more lax, if not non-existent, in many companies.
Some jobs and some companies are stricter than others when it comes to drug use. Failing a drug test can reflect badly on you, not only in your current job, but also in applying to subsequent jobs. That’s why it’s so important to go in with your eyes open, knowing what fields are going to test you, and what kind of test to expect. This way, you can be prepared to pass the test and not be caught off guard.