Portland’s City Council unanimously passed new rules that will significantly affect an employer’s ability to obtain and use criminal history information in the hiring process. With these new rules, Portland joins the growing number of other cities, counties and states across the country, including Oregon, that have enacted similar “ban-the-box” legislation in recent years.Employers throughout the United States, and particularly multi-state employers, should continue to monitor developments in this and related areas of the law, including laws restricting the use of credit history informationand the fair credit reporting laws,and to assess the impact of those laws on their pre-employment screening process. Portland employers should assess whether they are covered by the law, and if so, whether they need to revise their employment application, or otherwise modify their pre-employment screening procedures.

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