Human Resource Blog

Overtime/Retail

Federal law states that we should pay an employee overtime for the first 8 hours of the seventh consecutive workday OF THE WORK WEEK. This means if our work week begins on Saturday and the employee works seven days in a row, the hours worked on Friday should be paid at time and a half. Does Nevada state law have anything different than this?

According to Federal law, if the work week began on Saturday and ended on Friday, if an employee starts working on a Wednesday and works seven days in a row, because the time worked crossed two different work weeks, we would not pay overtime on the seventh day.

Please verify.

Thank you.

Sorry, but you have been misinformed. Federal law does NOT require overtime when an employee works 7 consecutive days of the work week.

The one and only federal overtime law is the FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act. The FLSA requires that employees be paid overtime when they work more than 40 hours in the payroll week. An employee who works 48 hours is entitled to 8 hours of overtime. It does not matter whether that 48 hours was spread over 3 days, or 7 days, the employee is still entitled to only 8 hours of overtime under federal law. An employee who put in 40 hours but worked 7 days in the payroll week would not be entitled to overtime under federal law.

Nevada does have its own, very unique overtime laws. Coincidentally, those laws changed today — July 1, 2009. Under the Nevada minimum wage and overtime law, different rules apply to employers who make group health insurance available, and those who do not. A Nevada employee who earns less than $11.325 per hour must be paid overtime after working 8 hours in the day. However, if the employer makes a qualified group health insurance plan available, this provision applies only to employees who earn $9.825 per hour or less.

Suppose Marsha is a part-time employee in Nevada who works only 10 hours, one day per week. Marsha is paid $9.83 per hour. If Marshas employer provides group health insurance, Marsha need not be paid overtime. However, if Marshas employer provides no health insurance plan, she is entitled to 2 hours of overtime per week at 1.5 times her usual hourly rate.

A few states have laws that require payment of overtime on the 7th consecutive day of work. California has a law similar to the one you are quoting, where employees are entitled to overtime on the 7th consecutive day in the work week. Nevada does not.

Some union contracts or federal contracts may require overtime payment when the employee works 7 consecutive days.