The New York Department of Labor (DOL) uses the nationwide count of employees to determine whether an employer owes higher paid sick leave accrual.
New York’s paid sick leave (PSL) law requires employers to provide covered employees with PSL hours based on the total number of employees a business has:
- Employers with 100 or more employees are required to allow employees to accrue and use up to 56 hours of PSL each year.
- Smaller employers, those with fewer than 100 employees, are only required to allow employees to accrue and use up to 40 hours of PSL yearly.
However, the law does not specify whether the employee count is based on the number of employees in New York, or on a wider picture of the employer’s workforce.
The DOL interprets the law to mean the number of employees that an employer has nationwide. This means that large employers with a very small number of employees in New York (as few as one) will still be subject to the higher accrual requirement of 56 hours of PSL for its New York based employees. The DOL’s guidance comes in response to a public comment on New York’s PSL law (see Response 12 on page 17).
Need Questions Answered?
Employers and especially payroll professionals face tough questions like this on a regular basis. Find answers to a year’s worth of tough payroll questions in PayrollOrg’s Top Payroll Questions and Answers for 2024, which is a free Ebook for members.
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Lorelei Abernathy, Esq., is Editor of PayState Update and Editor of Payroll Information Resources for PayrollOrg.
