According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ending January 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 467,000, a decrease of 24,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 491,000. The 4-week moving average was 525,750, a decrease of 27,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 552,750.
According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ended December 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 492,000, a decrease of 94,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 586,000. The 4-week moving average was 552,250, a decrease of 5,750 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 558,000.
According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ended December 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 586,000, an increase of 30,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 556,000. The 4-week moving average was 558,000, an increase of 13,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 544,250.
President-Elect Barack Obama recently nominated Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) to be the new Secretary of Labor. Solis, 51, has served four terms in the House of Representatives and recently won a fifth term. According to the AFL-CIO, Solis has voted right 97% of the time in her congressional career and 100% of the time in 2007. In accepting the nomination Solis said, “As Secretary of Labor, I will work to strengthen our unions and support every American in our nation’s diverse workforce…We also must enforce federal labor laws and strengthen regulations to protect our nation’s workers, such as wage and hour laws, and rules regarding overtime pay and pay discrimination.” If confirmed, Solis would succeed current Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
According to the US Department of Labor, in the week ended December 13, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 554,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 575,000. The 4-week moving average was 543,750, an increase of 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 541,000.
As the January 16, 2009 deadline for implementing the new Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulations draws closer, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your company policies are compliant. What is the FMLA? Who does the FMLA affect at the company level as well as the employee level? What should you be doing now to ensure compliance? What is the impact of the National Defense Authorization Act? How has the definition of a qualifying serious health condition changed under the new regulations? Which new standard forms has the Department of Labor issued and where can you download copies of these forms? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this month’s HRCast, a recording provided by our team of HR Pros and available exclusively on MyHRSupportCenter. Visit MyHRSupportCenter regularly not only for our HRCasts, but also to get late-breaking compliance alerts, best practices to implement, and HR tools to use every day. If you’re not yet signed up or would like a free trial of MyHRSupportCenter, contact Vision Payroll today.
The US Department of Labor recently issued non-Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2008-13NA. 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 whether daycare instructors who spend a majority of their time teaching qualify as exempt teachers under the FLSA. The Opinion Letter stated “that the daycare center instructors [spent] a majority of their time teaching children between the ages of three and five a curriculum of basic reading, counting, and social skills.” The relevant State Department of Education did not license the daycare centers where the instructors worked, although they were licensed by the state’s Department of Public Welfare. The implication of this distinction is “that the state does not consider the day care centers to be providing educational services.” The Opinion Letter concludes that the instructors do not qualify for the teacher exemption since they do not provide elementary education under the laws of their state.
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 ended December 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 573,000, an increase of 58,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 515,000. The 4-week moving average was 540,500, an increase of 14,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 526,250.
The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued non-Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2008-12NA. 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 whether a company that employs dump truck drivers uses an overtime calculation method in compliance with the FLSA. The company pays each dump truck driver a commission equal to 27% of the gross revenue that the company receives for the materials delivered by that driver. The company pays overtime based on one-half of the commission divided by the hours worked times the number of hours worked in excess of forty in that week.
For example, assume a driver delivers material that produces $5000 of gross revenue for the company and works fifty-four hours in that workweek. The driver would be entitled to commission compensation of $1350 ($5000 X 27%). This would work out to a regular rate of pay of $25 per hour ($1350 ÷ 54 hours). The driver would also be entitled, therefore, to $175 of overtime compensation ($25 per hour X 14 hours (hours worked in excess of forty) ÷ 2 (overtime premium rate)).
The DOL confirmed that this method of computing overtime pay was proper 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.
The US Department of Labor recently issued non-Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2008-11NA. 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 whether Adult Detention Officers may volunteer as Reserve Sheriff Deputies under the FLSA. According to the Opinion Letter “[p]ublic safety employees taking on any kind of security or safety function within the same local government are never considered to be employed in a different capacity.” Therefore, volunteering as deputy sheriffs in the same public agency is not allowed for detention officers under the FLSA. The detention officers may volunteer, however, “[i]f the two employers are not the same public agency”. Opinion Letters FLSA2006-28 and FLSA2006-21NA both discuss how to determine if two employers are the same agency.
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.
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