Fast Casual: National Retail Federation Asks U.S. House to Put Overtime Regulation on Hold

The House Small Business Committee this week got an earful from the National Retail Federation on the Federal overtime regulations set to become effective Dec. 1. It claimed that the regulation will not only freeze hiring but will also lead to lay-offs and demotions.

"Supporters of the rule who celebrate studies predicting a potential increase in part-time jobs fail to acknowledge to the public that any increase in part-time jobs comes at the expense of full-time employees' hours and earnings," wrote National Retail Federation Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French in a letter to the committee. "The creation of part-time jobs due to hiring freezes or layoffs of full-time employees is hardly something to celebrate."

His words follow the federation's previous statements echoing retailers' beliefs that the new regulations will end up costing full-time jobs. Opponents of the measure have said that retailers will be forced to hire part-time employees to work at straight time for a few hours weekly, instead of paying a higher overtime wage to their full-time workers who exceed 40 hours a week.

The National Retail Federation urged the members of the house committee to support an act the federation proposed to pause implementation of the new regulations, which will double the salary threshold entitling workers to overtime pay to $47,476 on Dec. 1, 2016.

A 2014 Gallup poll found that most full-time employees wrere putting in about 47 hours each week, though only 7 percent were paid for any additional hours beyond a 40-hour work week. That's quite a change from the world many baby boomers grew up in when 63 percent of workers, according to the study, were paid for hours they worked over the standard 40 every week.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimated that the new rule, which actually adjusts the threshold salary every three years, will make about 4.2 million more workers eligible for overtime.