FLSA Overtime Security Advisor

Professional Employees

You indicated that:

• The employee receives the same amount of pay for each week as a guaranteed salary, regardless of the number of hours or days worked. This amount would yield at least $684 in gross earnings if paid weekly;
• The employee's primary duty is work in a recognized field of science or learning;
• The employee's primary duty is work that requires advanced knowledge that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction;
• The employee's primary duty is work that is predominantly intellectual and includes consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in applying advanced knowledge; and
• The employee does not possess the appropriate academic degree as evidence of the prolonged course of specialized academic instruction.

Generally, the lack of the appropriate academic degree which is recognized as the standard prerequisite for entry into the profession results in the employee not meeting the duties tests for exemption as a learned professional employee.

However, the exemption may be available to employees in such professions who have substantially the same knowledge level and perform substantially the same work as the degreed employees, but who attained the advanced knowledge through a combination of work experience and intellectual instruction. For example, the learned professional exemption is available to the occasional lawyer who has not gone to law school, the occasional chemist who does not possess a degree in chemistry or an accountant who is not a certified public accountant (CPA), who has attained substantially the same level of advanced knowledge and performs substantially the same work in a professional field of science or learning as the degreed professional employees in these occupations.

The principle does not expand the learned professional exemption to new quasi-professional fields; it still requires that all other requirements for the learned professional exemption must be met.

If you have further questions about your situation, you may want to review Fact Sheet 17D: Exemption for Professional Employees Under the FLSA or contact your local Wage and Hour Division office.

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