Employment Agencies

Chapter 2 of Title 2.91 of Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code deals with employment agencies in California.

Section 1812.503 requires every employment agency subject to this title to maintain a bond issued by a surety company admitted to do business in this state. The principal sum of the bond must be $3,000. A copy of the bond is to be filed with the Secretary of State.

An employment agency is not to conduct any business without having a current surety bond in the amount prescribed by this title and filing a copy of the bond with the Secretary of State. Thirty days prior to the cancellation or termination of any surety bond required by this section, the surety is required to send a written notice of that cancellation or termination to both the employment agency and the Secretary of State, identifying the bond and the date of cancellation or termination.

If any employment agency fails to obtain a new bond and file a copy of that bond with the Secretary of State by the effective date of the cancellation or termination of the former bond, the employment agency is required to cease to conduct any business unless and until a new surety bond is obtained and a copy of that bond is filed with the Secretary of State.

When the first claim against a particular deposit has been approved, it is not to be paid until the expiration of a period of 240 days after the date of its approval by the Secretary of State. Subsequent claims that are approved by the Secretary of State within the same 240-day period must similarly not be paid until the expiration of the 240-day period.

Upon the expiration of the 240-day period, the Secretary of State is required to pay all approved claims from that 240-day period in full unless the deposit is insufficient, in which case each approved claim must be paid a pro rata share of the deposit. After a deposit is exhausted, no further claims are to be paid by the Secretary of State. Claimants who have had their claims paid in full or in part are not required to return funds received from the deposit for the benefit of other claimants.

Section 1812.504 requires every employment agency to give a written contract to every jobseeker from whom a fee or deposit is to be received, whether directly or indirectly. The original of the contract must be given to the jobseeker at the time the jobseeker signs the contract and before the employment agency accepts any fee or deposit or the jobseeker becomes obligated to pay any such fee or deposit. The contract is required to contain at least eleven specified items of information.

The full agreement between the parties must contained in a single document containing those elements set forth in this section. When a referral is made by telephone the agency is required to execute the contract or receipt in triplicate and mail the original and duplicate to the jobseeker on the day the referral is made, with instructions that they be signed by the jobseeker and the duplicate returned to the agency.

Section 1812.505 requires an employment agency to provide a copy of the agency’s jobseeker fee schedule and payment terms to any jobseeker from whom a fee or deposit is to be received, prior to the jobseeker being interviewed by a counselor. The jobseeker fee schedule must indicate the percentage of both the projected annual and first month’s total gross earnings represented by those fees.

In the schedule, the various employments or salary ranges by which the fee is to be computed or determined must be classified, and in each class the maximum fee is to be fixed and include the charges of every kind rendered by the agency in each case or transaction on behalf of the prospective employee. Changes in the schedule may be made, but no change is to become effective until posted for not less than seven days in a conspicuous place in the agency.

No fee charged or collected is to be in excess of the fee as scheduled. No employment agency may accept, directly or indirectly, a registration fee of any kind. No employment agency may take from a jobseeker a confession of judgment, a promissory note or notes, or an assignment of wages to cover its fees.

Section 1812.506 explains that, if a jobseeker paying or becoming obligated to pay a fee, or making a deposit on a fee for placement fails to accept employment, the employment agency is required, upon request by the jobseeker, to repay the amount of the deposit or fee to the jobseeker.

All employment provided by any employment agency to any jobseeker from whom a fee is to be received is considered permanent only if it lasts longer than 90 days. If a jobseeker leaves the job or is discharged within the first 90 days of employment, the agency is to make a refund or reduction of the fee to the temporary fee amount unless the agency’s fee schedules, contracts, and agreements specifically provide for a further charge if the jobseeker leaves employment without just cause or is discharged for misconduct in connection with his or her work.

The terms “just cause” and “discharge for reasons other than misconduct” are defined to include specified actions, as well as the terms “lack of just cause” and a discharge for “misconduct.”

Section 1812.507 prohibits any employment agency from accepting a fee from any jobseeker, or send any jobseeker for employment, without having obtained, orally or in writing, a bona fide job order for employment.

An agency is required to identify itself as an employment agency to the employer in all instances in which it contacts an employer for the purpose of soliciting a job order. All job orders must be recorded in writing. A job order for employment is considered to have been given by an employer to an employment agency under the specified conditions. An employment agency is prohibited from referring a jobseeker in three specified circumstances.

Section 1812.508 prohibits any employment agency from making, or causing to be made, 

any false, misleading, or deceptive advertisements or representations concerning the services that the agency will provide to jobseekers. Also, no employment agency is to publish or cause to be published any false, fraudulent, or misleading information, representation, notice, or advertisements.

In addition, all advertisements of an employment agency are required to contain the correct name of the employment agency and one of the specified items of information. Every employment agency, except a nurses’ registry, must use, as part of its name, either the designation “agency” or “personnel service.”

Where an employment agency job advertisement includes a description of the placement fee associated with the advertised job, the employment agency is required to describe the placement fee in a manner which either clearly indicates whether or not a jobseeker must be responsible for the placement fee or in accordance with the specified terms and provisions.

Section 1812.509 prohibits an employment from accepting any application for employment made by, or on behalf of, any minor, or place or assist in placing any minor in that employment. Every employment agency is required to notify each jobseeker before sending the jobseeker in response to a request for employment whether a labor contract is in existence at the establishment to which the jobseeker is being sent, and whether union membership is required.

An employment agency is prohibited from sending a jobseeker to any place where a strike, lockout, or other labor trouble exists without notifying the jobseeker of that fact and enter a statement of those conditions upon the contract or receipt given to the jobseeker.

Section 1812.5093 states that every employment agency that refers a child care provider to an employer who is not required to be a licensed child day care facility is required to provide the employer with all the four specified items. Receipt of the information required to be provided must be verified in writing by the employer.

Section 1812.5095 defines the term “employment agency.” An employment agency is not the employer of a domestic worker for whom it procures, offers, refers, provides, or attempts to provide work, if all of the specified factors characterize the nature of the relationship between the employment agency and the domestic worker for whom the agency procures, offers, refers, provides, or attempts to provide domestic work does the nine specified items.

An employment agency referring a domestic worker to a job is required to verify the worker’s legal status or authorization to work prior to providing referral services in accordance with procedures established under federal law. An employment agency referring a domestic worker to a job must orally communicate to the person seeking domestic services the disclosure set forth in this section prior to the referral of the domestic worker the specified disclosure statement.