New Jersey Overtime Laws

Time-and-a-half after 40 hours worked in a workweek is the practical starting point for most covered, nonexempt employees.

Overtime is calculated by workweek, not by pay period. An employer cannot average a long week and a short week together to avoid overtime that was earned in the long week.

How this differs from federal law: The basic 40-hour trigger matches the FLSA, but New Jersey has its own coverage rules, exemptions, wage orders and restrictions on mandatory overtime for certain health care workers.

New Jersey excludes some employment from its overtime requirement and has separate rules for particular industries and younger workers. Federal coverage must be checked independently whenever a state exemption applies.

The general rule does not fit every worker or workplace. These points are especially important in New Jersey:

• -Only hours actually worked count toward New Jersey's 40-hour threshold; paid sick leave, vacation and holiday hours do not create overtime by themselves.
• -When an employee works at two or more rates for the same employer, New Jersey generally uses a weighted average to find the regular hourly wage.
• -Health care workers have state protections against required overtime in many non-emergency situations. Workers under 18 and first-processing farm-product employees also have separate wage-order provisions.

Under the FLSA, hours worked include time the employer requires or permits an employee to spend working. That can include required preparation, certain training or travel, and work performed before clocking in or after clocking out.

Paid vacation, holidays and sick leave usually are not hours actually worked for the federal 40-hour calculation. A contract, policy or state-specific rule can be more generous.

The workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 hours. It does not have to run Monday through Sunday, but it cannot be changed from week to week to avoid overtime.

Being paid a salary does not automatically remove an employee's right to overtime.

Common executive, administrative and professional exemptions depend on the employee's real job duties and the applicable pay-basis requirements. A title such as "manager" does not settle the question.

State exemption tests can differ from federal tests. Employers should apply every law that covers the work rather than relying only on payroll method or title.

An employer may require advance approval before overtime is worked. Even so, covered work must be paid when the employer required it, allowed it, or knew or should have known it was happening.

The employer may address a violation of its scheduling policy separately, but it cannot accept compensable work and then erase the hours from payroll.