Last week, PIA joined a coalition of allies in sending a letter to the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor (DOL), asking the DOL to hold meetings with stakeholders in the regulated communities before issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing updates to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)’s exemptions of executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements.

The EAP employee exemptions are known as the “white-collar” exemptions, and the DOL announced in its Fall 2021 regulatory agenda that it intends to issue an NPRM this April recommending these exemptions be updated. This won’t be the first time the DOL has considered updates to the white-collar overtime exemptions in recent years, but it would be the DOL’s first examination of the issue since the pandemic upended the labor market beginning in 2020.

Historically, administrations of both parties have held stakeholder meetings in preparation for similar notice-and-comment rulemaking processes. We are hopeful that the Biden administration will engage in similarly meaningful dialogue with stakeholders as it considers any changes.

PIA will continue to monitor the DOL’s consideration of whether—and if so, how—to update the white-collar overtime exemptions.