U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division Q&A Resulting from FFCRA

Mar 25, 2020

On March 24, 2020, The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division released Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”): Questions and Answers to help employers understand new requirements stemming from the FFCRA. Read our summary of relevant provisions of the new law.
Highlights include:

  • The effective date of the FFCRA is April 1, 2020.
  • There is no retroactive application of the law, so any leave (paid or unpaid) provided by an employer before that date does not count toward an employee’s leave eligibility (and presumably is not subject to payroll tax credits).
  • The DOL will use the “joint employer” and “integrated employer” tests (same as FMLA) to count employees for coverage purposes (i.e., only employers of “fewer than 500 employees” are covered).
  • Additional guidance is provided regarding how to count hours worked by part-time employees to calculate available paid leave.
  • Leave under the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act may be aggregated for different qualifying reasons up to the amount of available paid leave for each of those reasons.
  • Employees may substitute employer-provided paid leave for Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act leave (to care for a child home from school) for the first two weeks of such leave.

Visit the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division COVID-19 and the American Workplace resource page.
If you have Wage and Hour questions, please contact a Bose McKinney & Evans labor and employment attorney.