State of New Jersey Overtime Labor Laws

New Jersey’s overtime labor law is pretty straightforward and very comparable to a lot of the other state overtime laws that we’ve looked at recently. However, I think it’s crucial that I still cover it here, because the New Jersey law does have its unique facets and it does cover most New Jersey workers.

New Jersey overtime law states that employees are entitled, for each and every hour and minute worked in excess of 40 hours in a week, to at least time and a half of their normal wages.

To figure out how many hours you’ve worked in a week, the New Jersey law instructs that employees only use the hours worked in each week, on their own. That means that you cannot average the hours in more than two weeks.

New Jersey draws the line, though, when it comes to paying overtime for special occasions or for more than enough hours worked in a day. For instance, if an employee works more than eight hours in a day, that does not entitle them to get overtime. What matters is those hours put in over the course of the entire work week.

Also, New Jersey law does not force employers to pay extra pay for working on a holiday, a weekend, or other days considered “regular days of rest.”

Then again, if an employer has agreed in a contract ahead of time to pay his or her employees time and a half for holiday pay, or when an employee works more than hour hours in a day, then the law is pretty clear: that employer must pay it.

The New Jersey law also makes it clear what exactly is “regular” pay for an employee, for the sake of figuring out overtime pay/ Regular wages, for example, don’t include holiday bonuses, payments of sick days, vacation days, and personal time, or any pay given to an employee for travel.