(SitNews) Anchorage, Alaska - The U.S. Department of Labor has finalized a new overtime rule that increases the minimum salary requirements for employees to be considered overtime exempt. The new rule limits an employer’s ability to classify lower paid workers as overtime exempt. The rule will affect approximately 5,560 qualifying Alaskans currently treated as overtime exempt who receive a salary of less than $47,476 per year ($913 per week). This includes employees working under administrative, executive, professional and other “white collar” overtime exemptions.

“Alaska’s middle class will be strengthened by this regulatory reform,” said Commissioner Heidi Drygas. “The minimum salary requirements for overtime have not been updated for more than a decade. This adjustment means lower paid workers should earn additional compensation when they are required to work overtime.”

Alaska’s labor laws have exceeded federal standards since the legislature passed the Wage and Hour Act in 1959. Alaska’s minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum wage, and overtime coverage is more comprehensive. Under Alaska’s overtime law, employees receive overtime when they work more than 8 hours in a day or when they work more than forty hours in a week, while federal overtime threshold only kicks in after forty hours worked in a week. As a result of this update, most workers earning less than $47,476 per year will be paid for overtime work.

Edited by Mary Kauffman, SitNews

Source of News:

Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Developmen
www.labor.state.ak.us

 

Representations of fact and opinions in comments posted below are solely those of the individual posters and do not represent the opinions of Sitnews.

SitNews ©2016
Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska

Articles & photographs that appear in SitNews may be protected by copyright and may not be reprinted without written permission from and payment of any required fees to the proper sources. E-mail your news & photos to editor@sitnews.us Photographers choosing to submit photographs for publication to SitNews are in doing so granting their permission for publication and for archiving. SitNews does not sell photographs. All requests for purchasing a photograph will be emailed to the photographer.