{"id":1149,"date":"2019-02-18T06:38:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T06:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymeovertime.com\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2020-02-25T09:43:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T09:43:21","slug":"understanding-exempt-employees-vs-nonexempt-employees-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.california-labor-law-attorney.com\/understanding-exempt-employees-vs-nonexempt-employees-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Exempt Employees vs. Nonexempt Employees in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-602\" title=\"Photo Credit:&nbsp;Shutterstock.com\/Rawpixel.com\" src=\"https:\/\/www.californialaborlaw.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/shutterstock_425727901-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Professionals with laptops and notes at a table pointing at a diagram in the center of the table \" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.california-labor-law-attorney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/shutterstock_425727901-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.california-labor-law-attorney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/shutterstock_425727901-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.california-labor-law-attorney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/shutterstock_425727901.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>With so many lawsuits involving situations where employers have misclassified nonexempt employees as exempt employees, it&#8217;s vital that employers understand the differences and the eligibility for each. This article looks at the classifications of exempt and nonexempt employees according to California laws.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>California Exempt and Nonexempt Employee Classification<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Salary&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>To be exempt, an employee must be earning more than twice the minimum wage and must be in full-time employment. Earning is not an automatic qualification for exemption.<\/p>\n<p>Exempt employees receive full weekly pay for all the weeks they worked. Therefore, the number of deductions that can be made on an exempt employee&#8217;s salary are few.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Job Title<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>An employee&#8217;s job title is not a determining factor. A big job title employee may still be nonexempt, as long as the job duties do not conform to the requirements to be exempt.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Duties Test<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Employees under California laws need work half of the job time on exempt duties for them to become exempt employees.<\/p>\n<p>A majority of employees classified as being exempt regularly make independent decisions at their places of work. Their jobs involve evaluating situations and deciding on the course of action independently.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Determination by California&#8217;s Labor Commissioner<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A labor commissioner will examine the duties performed by an employee to determine if they&#8217;re to be categorized as exempt or nonexempt.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Deductions From The Pay of Exempt Employees<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Employers should not deduct the pay of exempt employees for the day\u2019s work is unavailable, so long as the employees are willing and in a position to perform work. In such cases, California laws on exempt employees require that they be paid the full weeks\u2019 pay, even if they worked for one day.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>California vs Federal laws on Exemptions<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>These are slight differences in the way federal and state laws apply to employee exemptions for specific job descriptions. The following are exemptions for California job duties.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Executives<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Managers are still required to meet the requirements to be exempt. Otherwise, they would remain to be nonexempt.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Professional Employees<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>They still need to meet specific requirements for professional exemption.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Employees in Administrative Positions<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Not every senior employee is exempt unless their duties match those performed by exempt employees according to California laws.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Computer Professionals<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In the year 2000, state law was amended to be in line with federal law regarding computer professionals, exempting them from overtime.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Artists<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Not many artists qualify to be exempt under California laws due to the nature of their work; most are self-employed, with full control of the hours they work.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Salespeople<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>They&#8217;re categorized into inside and outside salespeople to define their statuses as either exempt or nonexempt as defined by California laws.<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit:&nbsp;Rawpixel.com\/Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With so many lawsuits involving situations where employers have misclassified nonexempt employees as exempt employees, it&#8217;s vital that employers understand [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[250,251,252,151,166,253],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employee-rights","tag-deductions","tag-duties-test","tag-exempt-employees","tag-exemptions","tag-nonexempt-employees","tag-salary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Understanding Exempt Employees vs. Nonexempt Employees in California<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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