The US Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding overtime eligibility for "white collar" employees:

With this proposed rule, the Department seeks to update the salary level required for exemption to ensure that the FLSA’s intended overtime protections are fully implemented, and to simplify the identification of nonexempt employees, thus making the executive, administrative and professional employee exemption easier for employers and workers to understand and apply.

The proposed rule extends overtime eligibility for nearly five million workers within the first year of its implementation. The DOL estimates that this change could cost employers an additional $1.2 billion per year. As proposed, the salary threshold would rise from $455 a week (the equivalent of $23,660 a year) to about $970 a week ($50,440 a year) in 2016. Details can be found in a fact sheet issued by DOL.

Although the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reviewed and approved the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the document has not yet been published in the Federal Register. The NPRM that appears in the Federal Register will specify the dates of the public comment period. You can visit www.regulations.gov to submit written comments once the NPRM is published on the Federal Register.

ALCC will continue to monitor this proposed regulation and will update as new information becomes available.

Further reading: Wage and Hour Division (WHD) web site for Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Overtime