HR guides for Arizona employers

What makes Arizona different

Arizona is not a light-touch state, and employers moving here from a neighbouring one are usually surprised by the same four things.

• E-Verify applies to every employer, at any size. Most states either have no mandate or set a headcount threshold. Arizona's Legal Arizona Workers Act requires it from your first hire, with your business licence on the line (A.R.S. §23-214).
• The voters set the wage, not the legislature. Proposition 206 fixed the minimum wage and indexes it annually, and the same measure created statewide earned paid sick time — an entitlement many employers assume Arizona does not have.
• Wrongful termination runs through a statute, not the common law. The Employment Protection Act confines claims to breach of a written contract, discharge in violation of an Arizona statute, or whistleblower retaliation. There is no free-floating public-policy tort outside those boxes (A.R.S. §23-1501).
• Sexual harassment has no headcount floor. The Arizona Civil Rights Act reaches discrimination at 15+ employees, but sexual-harassment provisions apply from a single employee.

Arizona has no state mini-WARN Act — federal WARN at 100+ employees is the whole layoff-notice analysis. Watch the localities, though: Flagstaff and Tucson set their own minimum wages above the state figure.