Another year means another time in which many in the HR space turn towards California, which has a reputation for extensive employment laws and regulations not seen in other states.
“Everybody knows California tends to have these new laws that are challenging, to say the least,” Michele Miller, chair of Cozen O’Connor’s west coast labor and employment law department, said Dec. 11 during the firm’s annual virtual event on California labor law changes.
2026 will give the state’s employers plenty to wrap their heads around, from new laws on workplace notices and paid sick leave to yet another minimum wage update.
‘Know Your Rights’ notice requirements and designated emergency contacts (SB 294)
By Feb. 1, 2026, employers must provide a stand-alone written notice to employees with details on a whole host of categories such as workers’ compensation, immigration inspections, union organizing, concerted activity and constitutional rights within the context of law enforcement interactions. The notice must be provided to current employees annually and to new employees at the time of hire.
“The good news is that employers are not tasked with coming up with this notice,” said Elena Hillman, member of the firm at Cozen. The law tasks the state’s labor commissioner with providing a template notice that can be modified for an employer’s workplace. The commissioner also must revise the template as needed.
Additionally, by March 30, 2026, employers must provide employees the opportunity to name an emergency contact for situations in which the employee is arrested or detained at work. Employers would be required to notify the contact if they have “actual knowledge” of an employee’s arrest or detention during work hours or performance of job duties.
Education and training information requests (SB 513)
California approved legislation expanding the definition of “personnel records” to include education and training records. Hillman said this includes records for mandatory harassment and discrimination training as well as those related to skills training, software or equipment training or core competency training — though the statute doesn’t provide an exhaustive list.
Employers in the state generally were already required to keep such records, but the new law requires that they be included in an employee’s personnel file. Current law allows employees to request their personnel file, and employers have 30 days to provide the files upon request.
Clarifications on paid sick leave for crime victims (AB 406)
In 2024, California passed AB 2499, which permitted covered employees to take time off from work to seek protection as a victim of qualifying violent acts, or if a family member is a victim. But the law was confusing, Hillman said, and the state legislature revisited it this past year with AB 406.
The new law clarifies that employers must provide time off for employees who are themselves victims of violence or have family members who are victims, including to attend judicial proceedings related to covered crimes. It states that paid sick leave may be used to attend such proceedings. AB 406 also expands the list of covered crimes.
Workplace transition information notices under Cal-WARN (SB 617)
Effective Jan. 1, 2026, the state’s California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, also known as Cal-WARN, will require employers to provide an expanded notice in the event of a covered mass layoff, termination, plant closure or facility relocation.
Specifically, the notice must answer whether the employer is coordinating with a local workforce development board, or a similar entity, so that affected workers have access to a resource that can help them through the transition. The notice must be included regardless of whether the employer plans to do so and must include a functional email address and telephone number for the local board with a description of its rapid response activities.
The notice also must provide employees a description of CalFresh, the state’s food assistance program, as well as a link to the CalFresh website.
Paid family leave for a ‘designated person’ (SB 590)
Effective July 1, 2028, California’s paid family leave program will allow employees to select one “designated person” whose serious illness they would be able to take paid leave to care for. The person must be either related to the employee by blood or have an association with the employee that is the equivalent of a family relationship. Employees must attest to the nature of the relationship under penalty of perjury.
‘Pay scale’ definition update and pay data reporting deadline extension to May 2027 (SB 642, SB 464)
The Golden State made a few updates to its pay equity laws. California is one of several states with pay transparency requirements, and Gov. Gavin Newsom approved an amendment requiring that the pay ranges employers post to the public be a “good faith estimate” of the salary or hourly wages they expect to pay upon hire.
SB 642 also updates the language of the state’s gender-based pay discrimination prohibition to clarify that pay may not unlawfully differ between employees “of another sex” rather than the “opposite sex.” Separately, the law’s statute of limitations has been extended to three years and clarifies that the recovery period for employees is set at six years.
A separate law, SB 464, amended California’s pay data reporting requirements. Effective Jan. 1, 2027, the number of job categories for which employers must report demographic, pay and hours worked data will be expanded from 10 to 23. The first data collection affected by the change would take place in May 2027, Hillman said, so employers have about one year to prepare.
Protections for workers displaced by COVID-19 (AB 858)
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the state enacted a law to require employers to provide information about job openings to employees laid off on or after March 4, 2020, for reasons related to the pandemic. Employers also were required to offer positions to such employees using a preference system outlined by the law.
The provisions for the COVID-19-era displacement law were set to expire Dec. 31, but ABA 858 extends the protections through 2026, ending Jan. 1, 2027.
Restrictions on requiring employees to pay employers back certain debts (AB 692)
Effective Jan. 1, 2026, California employers are prohibited from implementing contractual requirements that employees pay the employer, a training provider or debt collector for certain debts in the event the employee is terminated, with some exceptions.
The law is aimed at eliminating restrictions on employee mobility and is not retroactive, said Nicole Perkin, also a member of the firm at Cozen. The list of exceptions includes items such as contracts related to tuition costs for a transferable credential as well as contracts for the receipt of discretionary or unearned monetary payment that is not tied to job performance.
In order to qualify for either of the two above exemptions, such contracts must be separate from any employment contract and must meet a variety of other requirements, Perkin added. Notably, repayment can only be required in the event that the employee chooses to voluntarily resign, or if the employer elects to fire the employee for misconduct.
“Make sure that human resources or whoever is going to be enforcing this understands the definition of misconduct and that that’s going to be a high burden and hard to meet,” Perkin said. “Your run of the mill termination is probably unlikely to satisfy that.”
Bias mitigation training update (SB 303)
An employee’s assessment, testing, admission or acknowledgement of a personal bias made in good faith and solicited as part of a bias mitigation training does not, by itself, constitute unlawful discrimination, according to the recently enacted SB 303. The law separately affirms that bias mitigation training, by itself, is not unlawful discrimination.
Those provisions are noteworthy given the shift on diversity, equity and inclusion policies at the federal level; the U.S. Department of Justice specifically identified race-segregated training as unlawful discrimination in a document published last July.
Wage changes
California’s minimum wage is to be set at $16.90 per hour beginning Jan. 1, 2026, though employers should keep in mind that local governments may have set even higher rates, Hillman said. Additionally, the state’s annual salary threshold for overtime pay exemption will increase to $70,304 — nearly double that of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
