DOL Plans to Propose Overtime Rules in October

Author: Michael Cardman, Brightmine Legal Editor

June 27, 2022

The US Department of Labor (DOL) now intends to propose new Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime rules this October, six months later than originally planned.

Last fall, the DOL said it would propose new overtime rules - which are expected to raise the minimum salary for most overtime-exempt employees and possibly update the duties tests as well - in April.

But the DOL's latest regulatory agenda changed the projected date from April to October without explanation.

The DOL may postpone the date even further, as it often misses its own rulemaking targets.

Regardless, employers should have plenty of time to prepare.

After a new overtime rule is proposed, the public will have at least 30 days to comment on it before the DOL can issue a final rule. Then the final rule would need to take effect no sooner than 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register, assuming it is classified as a major rule.

Conspicuously absent from the DOL's agenda was a new rule for determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the FLSA. The acting administrator of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division recently announced her intention to issue a new independent contractor rule, but she did not lay out any particular timeline.