California is making hiring more expensive during a recession. That’s crazy

California’s Assembly Bill 5 continues to be a lightning rod. Workers and companies are fighting its application, a recent follow-up law granted exemptions for several additional industries, a repeal attempt failed, courts are considering legal challenges, and voters will soon decide whether to partially unravel it.
The law, a first-of-its-kind attempt at reclassifying millions of independent contractors as employees, attempts to compel companies to provide freelancers with more