Overview

• The nail technician exemption in AB5, introduced in 2019, expired on Jan. 1, exposing salons and contractors to stricter employee classification requirements.
• Independent manicurists warn that the end of the carve-out threatens their flexible work model and unfairly singles out a profession dominated by Vietnamese-born women.
• Lorena Gonzalez, author of AB5, says lawmakers targeted the nail industry after finding more misclassification complaints among manicurists than in other cosmetology fields.
• The Southern California salon chain that lost a 2013 misclassification ruling is among those now suing the state over the renewed AB5 restrictions.
• Nearly one-third of California’s 125,000 licensed manicurists work as independent contractors, a status now at risk.