Business group asks Labor Department to delay overtime rule

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) formally asked the Labor Department Monday to delay its controversial overtime rule.

In a petition, the small-business lobby asked the agency to extend the Dec. 1 deadline for compliance.

{mosads}The rule, which was finalized in May, makes anyone earning up to $47,476 a year, or roughly $913 a week, eligible for overtime pay — a dramatic increase over the $23,660 per year salary cutoff for overtime pay eligibility now.

In its petition, the NFIB called the deadline “arbitrary” and said small businesses need more time to analyze the legal status of employees and make adjustments to timekeeping and payroll systems.

“The US economy is a small business economy and many of these firms don’t have the resources, the personnel, or the time to meet the deadline,” the group’s president and CEO, Juanita Duggan, said in a release.

“Beyond that, many small businesses are gearing up for the make-or-break holiday season. This is a very costly regulation that is made more damaging by the arbitrary deadline.”

The NFIB is instead asking the Department of Labor to move the compliance deadline to June 1, 2017.

“The Department of Labor is asking more of America’s small businesses than is reasonable (or perhaps is even possible) when it asked the 68 percent of America’s businesses that have fewer than 10 employees, or the 39 percent of American’s businesses with annual receipts of less than $250,000 to first become aware of … and then find, read, comprehend and implement the final rule in the 25 week period from May 23 to Dec. 1, 2016,” the group said in its letter to the department.