On June 19, 2014, New York Assembly and Senate passed legislation eliminating a Wage Theft Prevention Act requirement that employers must provide wage notices to all employees by Feb. 1 each year.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was expected to sign the bill, making 2014 the last year employers had to provide the notice. This is certainly a welcome development for employers in New York, that found the annual wage notice requirement to be extremely burdensome and costly.

Penalties for other violations -

However, the news isn’t all positive. The bill also increases the penalties for an employer’s failure to provide a wage notice upon hiring a new employee and for failing to provide appropriate wage statements to employees.

Originally published in the HR Specialist - August 2014.