DOL enforcement in 2021: FLSA violations & more

Even though the Dept. of Labor (DOL) went through a significant transition period after the election, it still managed to keep up with its enforcement efforts for Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) violations in 2021.

The Wage and Hour Division concluded 24,727 cases in FY 2021, with an average of just over 71 days to resolve each one. And in all, the DOL collected more than $234.2 million in back wages for 193,349 workers.

Make sure you and your Payroll team are aware of the FLSA violations the DOL’s been focusing on the most. That way, you can avoid scrutiny and costly legal battles in the new year.

Recurring FLSA violations

When looking at the types of FLSA violations the DOL handled this year, most of them were minimum wage and overtime issues.

In FY 2021, the DOL dealt with 7,287 cases with minimum wage violations where companies paid almost $26 million in back wages and 7,159 cases with overtime violations where employers paid almost $139 million in back wages.

This past year, FLSA violations were common in what the DOL’s dubbed “low wage, high violation industries.” The top offenders were:

• food services, which had 4,237 cases where 29,209 employees received over $34.7 million in back wages
• construction, which had 3,034 cases where 21,341 employees received over $36 million in back wages
• retail, which had 2,705 cases where 14,734 employees received over $13.4 million in back wages
• health care, which had 1,194 cases where 17,079 employees received almost $14 million in back wages, and
• agriculture, which had 1,000 cases where 10,379 employees received more than $8.4 million in back wages.

The DOL received 20,279 new complaints in 2021 and logged over 850,151 enforcement hours total. The agency also conducted 4,793 outreach events (excluding mailings).

Issues with FMLA

Along with FLSA violations, the agency also investigated a fair number of complaints involving the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): 928 complaints were lodged in FY 2021. The top reasons were discrimination (281 complaints), termination (272 complaints) and refusal to grant FMLA leave (252 complaints).

Out of all FMLA complaints from employees, the DOL found 397 cases with valid violations that affected 429 employees. They received over $1.4 million in back wages.