Under the current Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations, an employee must make a minimum salary of $23,660 per year ($455 per week) to be eligible for exempt status under the professional, executive, or administrative categories. Today, the Department of Labor proposed new regulations that would more than double this minimum salary requirement to $50,440 per year ($970 per week). The DOL will begin taking comments on these proposed rule changes, and the actual changes may be months away. But, employers should pay careful attention to these proposed changes because they may necessitate significantly increasing the salaries of many exempt employees or changing their designations from exempt to non-exempt along with potential changes to schedules and work hours.

For more information on the proposed rules – including the DOL’s explanation for making these changes as well as the proposed rules – please click here.

If you have Employment or FLSA questions, please contact Mike Birrer.