Fact Sheet #54 – The Health Care Industry and Calculating Overtime Pay
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires covered employers to pay nonexempt employees at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009, for all hours worked and overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The FLSA is administered by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Hospitals and other institutions “primarily engaged in the care of the sick, the aged, or the mentally ill” are covered employers under Section 3(s)(1)(B) of the FLSA. Thus, hospitals, residential care establishments, skilled nursing facilities, nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, residential care facilities and intermediate care facilities for mental retardation and developmentally disabled must comply with the minimum wage, overtime and youth employment requirements of the FLSA.
Summary
This fact sheet provides guidance regarding common FLSA violations found by the Wage and Hour Division during investigations in the health care industry relating to the calculation of overtime pay. Nonexempt employees must be paid at least time-and-one-half their “regular rate” of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The “regular rate” includes an employee’s hourly rate plus the value of some other types of compensation such as bonuses and shift differentials. The only remuneration excluded from the regular rate under the FLSA are certain specified types of payments like discretionary bonuses, gifts, contributions to certain welfare plans, payments made to certain profit-sharing and savings plans, and pay for foregoing holidays and vacations. A common error in calculating overtime pay by health care employers involve the failure to include bonuses, shift differentials and other types of compensation in the regular rate of pay. Errors are also common in the health care industry in calculating the regular rate when an employee works two or more different jobs in a single workweek.
There is no limitation in the FLSA on the number of hours employees over the age of 15 may work in any workweek. The FLSA does not require overtime pay for hours in excess of eight hours worked in a day, except as discussed below, or for hours worked on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays.
To continue reading, please visit this link: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs54.htm or download the .pdf attached to this document.
0 Comments