California Employment Law Changes in 2023

Increased State Minimal Wage: Senate Invoice 3, efficient in 2017, phased in annual will increase within the state minimal wage till the speed reached $15 an hour for all employers in 2023. This 12 months, the legislation’s automated annual improve applies for the primary time. It raises the minimal wage every January 1 to take account of the nationwide inflation price, as much as 3.5 %, and rounded to the closest dime. Consequently, on January 1, 2023, California’s state minimal wage for all employers (no matter measurement) will increase to $15.50 an hour – the utmost 3.5 % allowed. In the course of the measurement interval, nevertheless, the nationwide Client Value Index elevated 7.9 %. Employers additionally should take note of native minimal wage ordinances, which may require a better minimal wage – and in addition might have annual will increase.

Increased Minimal Pay for Exempt Staff: A hike within the state’s minimal wage routinely brings a rise within the minimal wage for sure additional time exempt staff. Employers now should look ahead to this variation yearly. Beneath the executive, govt, {and professional} exemptions, California employers should pay staff a month-to-month wage of no less than twice the state’s minimal wage. With the brand new minimal wage improve, the minimal wage might be $5,373.33 monthly, or $64,480 a 12 months. Beneath the fee pay exemption, staff should earn no less than one and a half instances the state minimal wage for all hours labored, with no less than half of their compensation from commissions. These staff should earn no less than $23.25 an hour in 2023. Individually, the minimal pay for workers beneath the pc software program skilled exemption will increase to $53.80 per hour, or $112,065.20 per 12 months – a 7.6 % improve, primarily based on the California Client Value Index.

Worker Sick Go away and Household and Medical Go away to Look after a “Designated Particular person”: Starting January 1, 2023, staff will have the ability to use their California paid sick go away to look after a “designated individual.” Employers with 5 or extra staff additionally should permit staff to take state household and medical go away (beneath the California Household Rights Act, or CFRA) to look after a “designated individual.” With each leaves, the individual designated doesn’t have to have a blood or household relationship with the worker, though it must be “the equal of a household relationship” for CFRA go away. Please see our alert on Assembly Bill 1041 for details.

Bereavement Go away: After vetoes of a number of previous efforts, most employers in California should present bereavement go away beginning on January 1, 2023. Meeting Invoice 1949 would require employers with 5 or extra staff to offer as much as 5 days of bereavement go away for the loss of life of sure members of the family. Please see our alert on this new law.

COVID-19 State Supplemental Sick Go away Expires: California’s supplemental COVID-19 paid sick go away, as prolonged by Meeting Invoice 152, expires on December 31, 2022. An worker utilizing obtainable supplemental paid sick go away on that date might be allowed to finish that absence and use obtainable go away into the primary days of 2023. Our alert on the law is available here. With COVID-19 charges spiking, employers ought to watch to see whether or not the Legislature and Governor enact a brand new mandate in 2023. Employers additionally ought to take observe that native supplemental paid sick go away ordinances should apply, resembling in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Lengthy Seashore.

Different COVID-19 Legal guidelines Prolonged: Two payments prolonged and modified some COVID-19 provisions that have been set to run out, with the necessities now to stay till January 1, 2024. Meeting Invoice 2693 prolonged California’s worker publicity discover necessities. Nonetheless, employers will now have the ability to publish a discover for 15 days, as a substitute of offering particular person notices. Additionally they now not might want to notify their native well being company. For employee’s compensation claims, Meeting Invoice 1751 extends, till January 1, 2024, the rebuttable presumptions that an worker’s COVID-19 an infection arose from employment. Sometimes, an worker has the burden of proof on a employee’s compensation declare. Even with this rebuttable presumption in place by legislation since 2020, California’s Fee on Well being and Security and Employee’s Compensation nonetheless discovered the denial of 34 % of COVID-19-related claims through the interval studied – in comparison with 10 % of employee’s compensation claims usually.

New Pay Transparency Legislation: Senate Invoice 1162 imposes a number of new wage transparency reporting necessities on California employers, efficient on January 1, 2023. All employers in California should (1) present, upon request, the pay scale for the place by which a present worker is employed; and (2) preserve documentation of an worker’s job title and wage historical past for every worker at some stage in the worker’s employment and for 3 years afterward. Employers with 15 or extra staff should embrace the “wage or hourly wage that the employer fairly expects to pay for the place” in any job posting, together with postings made on their behalf by third-party corporations. The brand new legislation expands reporting necessities for employers with 100 or extra staff, who now should file with the state an annual report exhibiting staff’ median and imply hourly pay charges “[w]ithin every job class, for every mixture of race, ethnicity, and intercourse.” These reviews are due the second week of Might every year. For 2023, the deadline is Might 10. Please see our alert on these new requirements here.

California Privateness Rights Act Takes Impact: The California Privateness Rights and Enforcement Act (CPRA), amending the California Client Privateness Act (CCPA), takes impact on January 1, 2023. The CPRA eliminates employer exemptions within the CCPA for worker/applicant knowledge and expands a number of areas of the CCPA. It creates a number of privacy-related obligations for employers, together with, however not restricted to, the necessity to notify candidates, staff, and contractors about private data that an employer might gather. The CPRA additionally will increase staff’ rights to entry, or prohibit the use or disclosure of, sure classes of private data.

Digital License Plate Restrictions: Beginning January 1, 2023, Meeting Invoice 984 restricts using digital license plates, which have built-in GPS performance, to trace automobile fleets. If employers use these plates to trace staff, the monitoring have to be “strictly essential” to staff’ duties and solely completed throughout work hours. An employer should present an in depth discover relating to any monitoring of staff, together with an outline of the particular actions that might be monitored, how the information might be used, whether or not the information gathered might be used to make any employment-related resolution, distributors or different third events to which data collected via monitoring might be disclosed or transferred, organizational positions licensed to entry the information gathered, the dates, instances and frequency that the monitoring will happen, and the place the information might be saved and for the way lengthy.

Worker Contraceptive and “Reproductive Well being Decisionmaking” Protections: Senate Invoice 523, the Contraceptive Fairness Act of 2022, is a complete legislation dealing primarily with protection of contraception and associated procedures. It has a few new employment protections, although. Beginning January 1, 2023, the Truthful Employment and Housing Act will prohibit discrimination primarily based on “reproductive well being decisionmaking,” which incorporates any “resolution to make use of or entry a specific drug, system, product, or medical service for reproductive well being.” Employers can not require disclosure of such data and should hold any such data confidential. The brand new legislation applies to employers with 5 or extra staff.

“Emergency Circumstances” Protections: Senate Invoice 1044 prohibits employers from taking or threatening to take an antagonistic motion in opposition to staff who, within the occasion of an “emergency situation,” refuse to return to work or go away work primarily based on an affordable perception that the worksite is unsafe. “Emergency situation” means a catastrophe or excessive peril to the security of an individual or property on the office brought on by pure forces or against the law, in addition to an evacuation order regarding a pure catastrophe or crime on the office, an worker’s house, or an worker’s baby’s faculty. It particularly excludes well being pandemics. “Affordable perception” means if an affordable individual would conclude there’s actual hazard of loss of life of significant harm if that individual enters or stays on the premises. Staff additionally have to be allowed to make use of cellular gadgets or different communication gadgets to hunt emergency help, assess the security of the state of affairs, or talk with an individual to confirm their security throughout an “emergency situation.” The brand new legislation takes impact on January 1, 2023.

Worker Garnishments: Senate Invoice 1477 reduces the portion of an worker’s wages topic to garnishment to pay a judgment. The brand new restrict would be the lesser of: (1) 20 % of an worker’s disposable earnings (as a substitute of 25 %), or (2) 40 % (slightly than 50 %) of the quantity by which disposable earnings exceed 48 instances the present state minimal wage or larger native minimal wage. This variation is efficient on September 1, 2023.

Worker Off-Responsibility Marijuana Use and Drug Testing Adjustments: Final, however not least, Meeting Invoice 1288 will prohibit employment discrimination for off-the-job marijuana use away from the office. Employers won’t be able to make use of drug testing for “nonpsychoactive hashish metabolites.” The brand new legislation applies to staff with 5 or extra staff, with some restricted exceptions. It’s not efficient till January 1, 2024, giving employers extra time to kind out how one can comply. For more details, please see our alert.