Vision Payroll

According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ending March 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 669,000, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 657,000. The 4-week moving average was 656,750, an increase of 6,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 650,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.3% for the week ending March 21, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.2%.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 21 was 5,728,000, an increase of 161,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,567,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,496,500, an increase of 163,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,333,000.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 4.700 million.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) announced recently that it has filed suit against former National Football League (NFL) player Michael Vick. Vick, who formerly played for the Atlanta Falcons, is scheduled to be released in May from a Kansas prison. The suit alleges, “Vick and others violated federal employee benefits law by making a series of prohibited transfers from a pension plan sponsored by one of his companies. The [DOL] also simultaneously filed an adversary complaint in federal bankruptcy court to prevent Vick from discharging his alleged debt to the MV7 retirement plan.”

Vick, who previously filed for bankruptcy, owned MV7, a celebrity marketing enterprise. MV7 sponsored a defined benefit plan for current and former employees.

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, said, “This action sends a message that the [DOL] will not tolerate the misuse of plan money and will take whatever steps necessary to recover the assets owed to eligible workers.”

The suit alleges that Vick, a star at Virginia Tech before joining the NFL, made $1.35 million in prohibited transfers from the plan in violation of his duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act or ERISA. The money was allegedly “used to help pay the criminal restitution imposed upon Vick after his conviction for unlawful dog fighting as well as his attorney in the bankruptcy cases.”

Contact Vision Payroll if you have any questions on this matter.

On January 21, 2009, the US Department of Labor (DOL) published at 74 FR 3822 “final rules under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and parallel provisions in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, relating to the provision of investment advice by a fiduciary adviser to participants and beneficiaries in participant-directed individual account plans, such as 401(k) plans, and beneficiaries of individual retirement accounts (and certain similar plans). These rules [affected] sponsors, fiduciaries, participants and beneficiaries of participant-directed individual account plans, as well as providers of investment and investment advice related services to such plans.”

On January 20, 2009 Rahm Emanuel, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, had “directed Agency Heads to consider extending for 60 days the effective date of regulations that have been published in the Federal Register but not yet taken effect.” Pursuant to that memo, the [DOL] announced recently that it was delaying the effective date of those rules from March 23, 2009 to May 22, 2009. This will give the DOL “time to review legal and policy issues raised by many of the 26 public comment letters [it] received.”

Contact Vision Payroll if you have any questions on this delay.

According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 652,000, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 644,000. The 4-week moving average was 649,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 650,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.2% for the week ending March 14, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.1%.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 14 was 5,560,000, an increase of 122,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,438,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,331,250, an increase of 123,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,207,500.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 4.646 million.

According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ending March 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 646,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 658,000. The 4-week moving average was 654,750, an increase of 3,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 651,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.1% for the week ending March 7, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.9%.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 7 was 5,473,000, an increase of 185,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,288,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,251,250, an increase of 118,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,132,500.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 4.577 million.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2009-2. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

In this Opinion Letter, the DOL concluded that an employer “may require exempt employees to use accrued vacation time during a plant shutdown of less than a workweek without violating the salary basis test and thereby affecting their exempt status” under the FLSA.

There is no requirement under the FLSA to provide vacation to employees. Employers may require employees to use vacation time or leave time “whether for a full or partial day’s absence, provided the employees receive in payment an amount equal to their guaranteed salary.” Therefore, so long as the employees receive their guaranteed salary there is no impact on their exempt status. Exempt employees without available time for vacation or leave must still receive their full salary “for any absence(s) occasioned by the employer or the operating requirements of the business.”

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2009-1. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

In this Opinion Letter, the DOL concluded that employee attendance at State mandated training programs by child care center workers does not result in hours worked under the FLSA. The DOL lists four criteria that must be met for the time not to be counted as hours worked:

1. Attendance is outside of the employee’s regular working hours;
2. Attendance is in fact voluntary;
3. The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee’s job; and
4. The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.

In this case, the employer offered the training courses after-hours, thereby meeting criterion 1. Employees could choose to attend or not, thus meeting criterion 2. The training qualifies under an exception for criterion 3 that states that “where the training is for the benefit of the employee and corresponds to courses offered by independent bona fide institutions of learning,” the training is not considered directly related to the employee’s job. As long as employees do not perform productive work during the training, criterion 4 would be met.

The DOL concludes that such training does not qualify as hours worked under the FLSA unless the State does not require the employer to provide the training.

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ending March 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 654,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 645,000. The 4-week moving average was 650,000, an increase of 6,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 643,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.0% for the week ending February 28, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.8%.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending February 28 was 5,317,000, an increase of 193,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,124,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,139,750, an increase of 124,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,015,500.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 4.533 million.

The US Department of Labor recently issued non-Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2008-14NA. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Unlike signed Opinion Letters, unsigned Opinion Letters do not “provide a potential good faith reliance defense for violations of the FLSA.”

This Opinion Letter discusses three points:

1. The restrictions an employer can impose during an on-call period.
2. Whether an employer is responsible for compensation when restrictions are imposed.
3. If the number of call-backs is a factor in determining if the on-call period is compensable.

Compensation for on-call periods is a question of facts and circumstances particular to each case. Generally, however, on-call time is compensable “when the on-call conditions are so restrictive or the calls so frequent that the employee cannot effectively use that time for personal purposes.” Carrying a pager or being required to report to work within a specified time period are usually not restrictions that require compensation.

The number of call-backs is a factor in determining if the on-call period is compensable. One court ruled that four or five calls per week was not enough to require compensation, while another court ruled an average of three to five calls in a twenty-four hour period was enough to require compensation for the on-call period.

Since the only restrictions that the employer in this case imposed were that the “employee must be reachable at all times, abstain from alcohol or other substances, and report to work within one hour of notification” and because call-backs were rare, the restrictions did not require compensation during the on-call period under the FLSA.

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to fall sharply in February (-651,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 7.6% to 8.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor reported recently. Payroll employment has declined by 2.6 million in the past 4 months. In February, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors.

The number of unemployed persons increased by 851,000 to 12.5 million in February, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.1%. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by about 5.0 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 3.3 percentage points.

The unemployment rate continued to trend upward in February for adult men (8.1%), adult women (6.7%), whites (7.3%), blacks (13.4%), and Hispanics (10.9%). The jobless rate for teenagers was little changed at 21.6%. The unemployment rate for Asians was 6.9% in February, not seasonally adjusted.

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs increased by 716,000 to 7.7 million in February.  This measure has grown by 3.8 million in the last 12 months.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 270,000 to 2.9 million in February. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed was up by 1.6 million.