The 2019 legislative session brought several significant changes to the way employers and employees do business, including the minimum wage rate, how much time off an employee receives per year and additional overtime pay requirements.
The minimum wage in Nevada is currently $8.25 per hour and $7.25, meaning employers pay $8.25 if qualified health insurance is not offered or made available and can pay a minimum of $7.25 per hour if qualified health insurance is offered.
Nevada SB192 revises provisions relating to health care and the qualified health benefits, effective Jan. 1, 2020, and establishes the minimum level of health benefits that an employer is required to make available to an employee and his or her dependents for the purpose of determining whether the employer is authorized to pay the lower minimum wage rate.
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RELATED: Changes to Nevada's minimum wage law – what employers need to know
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Nevada SB312 gradually makes changes to the minimum wage in Nevada, which will gradually increase by 75 cents per year until the hourly rate reaches $12 per hour on July 1, 2024.
The following are the minimum wages and effective dates:
Nevada SB312 also impacts daily overtime rates. Beginning July 1, 2020, hourly employees must be paid at 1.5 times the regular hourly rate if they work over 8 hours in a 24-hour period or over 40 hours in a week.
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This means that an employee who works an 8-hour shift later in the day must be paid overtime if expected to work first thing in the morning before 24 hours since the start of the prior day's shift.
According to SB312, employers with at least 50 employees will be required to pay employees a minimum of .01923 hours of paid leave for all employees for each hour worked that may be used by an employee beginning on the 90th calendar day of employment. An employee may also use paid leave available without providing a reason for using the leave. SB312 takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020.
An employer may limit the use of paid leave to 40 hours per benefit year, limit the amount of paid leave that may be carried over to another benefit year to a maximum of 40 hours per benefit year and set a minimum increment that an employee may use accrued leave at any one time, not to exceed four hours.
Nevada AB181 prohibits an employer from requiring an employee to be physically present at his or her place of employment to report being sick or injured and unable to work; this change was effective May 15, 2019. Employers are still allowed to ask for documentation of illness after several days of missing work.
Nevada SB493 sets forth provisions relating to misclassification of employees, particularly independent contractors. The bill mandates that certain state agencies share information relating to suspected employee misclassification under certain circumstances, creating a task force on employee misclassification and providing that an administrative penalty be assessed if an employer improperly classifies an employee as an independent contractor.
In the public sector, the 2019 Nevada legislative session changed the threshold for paying prevailing wage rates from a project total of $250,000 to $100,000, which was effective July 1, 2019. Prevailing wage rates throughout the state are separated between a Clark County Region, Southern Nevada Rural Region, Washoe County Region and Northern Nevada Rural Region.
More information regarding labor laws and changes can be found at labor.nv.gov.
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