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The federal Department of Labor has recently announced that it is hiring 300 new auditors to focus on wage and hour issues. We anticipate that they will be focusing particularly on classifications of employees as exempt, non-exempt or independent contractors and overtime violations, as well as other wage and hour issues such as break time, minimum wage and vacation pay.
This is a good reminder to review your employee classifications and pay practices to ensure full compliance with federal and state wage and hour laws. Employees are exempt if their primary job duties meet certain criteria and they receive a salary of at least $455 a week. Merely having an employee on salary does not make the employee exempt from the overtime rules. As a general rule, any non-exempt employee is entitled to 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for any hours worked over 40 in any one workweek. There is no “comp time” for non-governmental employees; if a non-exempt employee works overtime, the employee is generally entitled to overtime pay. Also remember that the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 an hour, effective July 24.
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