Department of Labor publishes new overtime regulations

On Tuesday, April 23, 2024, the Department of Labor (DOL) released its long-delayed final rule—Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees—increasing the salary threshold for overtime exemptions. The 383-page regulation, which prompted 33,000 comments, raises the salary thresholds from the proposed draft.

New overtime thresholds

For most employees exempt from overtime under Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the final rule will raise the threshold for exemption under the salaried basis to $844 per week beginning on July 1, 2024—or the equivalent of an annual salary of $43,888. Then, on January 1, 2025, the threshold will increase further to $1,128—or the equivalent of $58,656 based on the department’s new computational methodology. The current salaried basis threshold under the Trump administration’s 2019 revision to the FLSA is $684 a week, or $35,568 a year. The new rule also includes an “indexing” feature that will automatically raise the overtime threshold on July 1 every three years.

For highly compensated workers, the rule raises the salary basis threshold to $132,964 in July and $151,164 in January 2025, up from the current rate of $107,432.