BUTLER TWP — Starting Dec. 1 employers around the country are going to have to pay more employees for overtime or make changes to their staffing.

Karen Welton, community outreach and planning specialist with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Pittsburgh office, Wednesday gave a presentation on the Labor Department’s new rules.

The free program, at Butler County Community College, was aimed at human resource managers, business owners and workers.

Several attorneys in Butler had held brief seminars to educate the business community about the new rules, but the regulations are wide-reaching and many people still needed to get up to speed, said Roxann Tyger, with the sponsoring Alliance for Nonprofit Resources.

“What we’re finding is this really does impact everyone,” she said.

The Labor Department earlier this year announced changes to overtime regulations, specifically the white-collar exception for salaried workers. These changes were prompted by a memorandum from President Barack Obama in 2014, asking the department to modernize its regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

That Act is the basis for the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. It also states that salaried and hourly workers who work more than 40 hours per week, must be paid time-and-a-half for the hours above 40.

Salaried workers that are exempt from overtime requirements include doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, outside sales, computer analysts, engineers and white-collar management who earn a certain amount.

Starting next month, the salary requirement for managers will change. Under the new guidelines, salaried management employees whose gross pay is less than $47,476 per year (or $913 per week) will no longer be exempt from overtime. Previously, these workers only got overtime pay if they made less than $23,660 (or $455 per week).

By changing the exemptions, an estimated 4.23 million people nationwide and 184,792 in Pennsylvania will be affected, according to the Labor Department.

“It’s a very big jump, I understand that,” Welton told the crowd.

To be exempt from overtime requirements, white-collar workers must be supervisors or managers, whose primary duty is nonmanual work related to management of business operations and whose job includes exercise of discretion and independent judgment.

There is often a difference between a person’s job description and actual job duties, which can create problems with compliance, Welton said.

“It’s important that you are out there talking to your employees and making sure they are working the hours they are supposed to be working and that they are doing what their job description says they’re supposed to do,” she told the group.

For example, an assistant manager who is paid a salary may not actually qualify as exempt from overtime coverage, if they spend most of their time working alongside hourly workers or if they must ask a manager before giving orders to employees.

Another addition to the department’s regulations is that the salary level will be adjusted every 3 years starting in 2020.

Employers are expected to know and abide by the Department of Labor’s new overtime rules. One of the main duties of the Labor Department’s Pittsburgh office, which covers West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania and parts of Maryland and Virginia, is to investigate complaints or investigate certain occupations or sectors that are prone to labor violations, she said.

Since every workplace is different and there are a lot of different types of jobs, it can be challenging to determine whether an employee is exempt from overtime coverage, she said.

She advised employers with questions to call the Labor Department or consult the resources available on www.dol.gov/whd.