The proposed rule would raise the threshold under which workers are automatically eligible for overtime pay to about $55,000 a year, from the current level of about $35,000.
The proposed rule would raise the threshold under which workers are automatically eligible for overtime pay to about $55,000 a year, from the current level of about $35,000.
The very short answer is yes but; the longer answer is there are two types of employees (this isn’t all types of workers, but specifically employees of a company)
Non-exempt employees, which is most labor. You’re paid hourly, you’re paid for your time and/or quality of work, you have rights like breaks and minimum wage laws. This should include all blue collar workers, all non-‘professional’ labor, and all unskilled labor.
Exempt Employees, this is Executives, Administrative Employees (think managers), Learned/Creative professionals (everything from Doctors to 3D Artists), Computer Professionals (this is usually Ops/Dev level, not IT or support), Outside Sales, and Highly compensated employees that do at least some tasks from the above categories.
The idea is for non-exempt employees, you’re the grunt labor that literally anyone can do (plus professionally-licensed blue collar workers), and for exempt employees you’re paid for your results and independent skill set.
The original idea was that exempt employees would be so invested, involved, and integral to the company that they may need to work 90 hour work weeks, but may have periods where they do no work at all because they have to wait for the results of their work to be realized (An executive may make a decision one week, and need to wait for it to actually be completed before making any further decisions) If you pay them hourly with overtime, they may get a paycheck of a few tens of thousands of dollars, then no paycheck for a month. So instead you guarantee them a salary above a certain amount of money ($684/week for specifically exempt employees, or total annual compensation with no manual labor of $107k/year); and you can work them as hard as you like, as often as you like, but you can’t chastise them or easily fire them if there’s no work for them to do.
How it’s used in actual reality is you’ll be ‘promoted’ to a position that has like one underling and now you’re exempt and don’t get fairly compensated for your now 80 hour work week.
Fun Fact, the American Shitretailer Dollar General has been sued multiple times for misclassifying their employees because for a period of time all employees were managers, and thus were denied overtime.