By: BY NICOLE LYN PESCE for The New York Daily News
Smokers are getting burned in the job market.
A new study by the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that unemployed smokers take longer to find work than non-smokers — and once smokers do land jobs, they earn less than their smoke-free peers.
Researchers studied 131 unemployed smokers and 120 unemployed non-smokers around San Francisco for the study released on Monday. Only half as many smokers (27%) had found employment after 12 months compared to the nonsmokers (56%), and among those hired, the average person lighting up earned $5 less per hour than a non-smoker.
That extra cash might not sound like much — it doesn’t even cover the cost of a pack of cigs in New York City — but after working 32 hours a week, that $5 deficit balloons to $8,300 annually, study author Dr. Judith Prochaska explained in the report.
Even after researchers factored in each person’s sex, criminal history, alcohol and drug use, and access to housing and transportation, non-smokers were still 24% more likely to land jobs than smokers.