Overtime pay is additional compensation for working over 40 hours a week, and in California, over 8 hours in a day. Whether someone should receive overtime pay depends on the work that they do, but these general rules apply to all employees:
The overtime laws are designed to protect employees, and the courts construe them to give employees the maximum protection. Employees are presumed to be entitled to overtime pay, and, under California and federal law, the employer, not the employee, has the burden of proof to show that it properly paid the employee.
An employee's right to overtime pay does not depend on whether an employee is salaried. Many salaried employees are entitled to overtime pay.
Work activities, not job titles and responsibilities, govern whether you are entitled to overtime pay. In California, the law looks to what employees do over half their work time. While employers sometimes give employees untrue job titles for the purpose of avoiding overtime pay, this does not affect employees' overtime rights.
An employer must pay overtime pay unless it can prove that an employee is "exempt" from the overtime requirements. "Exempt" employees do not get overtime pay. The exemptions are briefly listed as follows. Click on any exemption to see to a more detailed description:
The
Executive Exemption
This exemption applies to employees who spend over half their work time managing businesses or departments of a business;
The
Administrative
Exemption
This exemption applies to employees who spend over half their work time assisting the proprietor or other exempt individual in "servicing" a business in matters of significance;
The
Professional Exemption
This exemption applies to employees who have certain licenses to practice a profession or who work in a "learned or artistic" profession;
The
Computer Software Professional
Exemption
This exemption applies to employees who work in highly theoretical aspects of computer software and make over $41.00 an hour;
The
Outside Salesperson
Exemption
This exemption applies to employees who usually work away from the workplace making sales and filling orders. However, the employee cannot spend significant time doing the same work as other non-exempt employees.
