Calculating overtime for employee with two different pay rates

Q       A restaurant employee works two jobs—as kitchen help earning above the minimum wage and as waitstaff earning $2.13 per hour plus tips. He works less than 40 hours per week in each job but works over 40 hours for the two jobs combined. Is he entitled to overtime pay?

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and parallel state laws require that nonexempt employees receive overtime pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in any one workweek. Even if an employee is performing two different kinds of work with different pay rates, all hours worked must be combined for overtime pay purposes.

That means the hours your employee works as kitchen help must be combined with the hours he works as waitstaff to determine if the 40-hour threshold for overtime pay is exceeded in any particular workweek. If so, the employee is entitled to overtime pay in that workweek—at one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours.