Key Takeaways
- New York employers should be aware of a number of new laws that take effect in 2025. Increases in the state and city minimum wages and exempt salary thresholds, and changes in leave benefits, are on the horizon.
- Lawmakers have proposed several noteworthy pieces of legislation that should be on employers’ radar in the coming year.
- Employers should verify continued compliance with several recently enacted employment laws and related obligations that went into effect in 2024.
The BakerHostetler Labor and Employment Practice Group keeps a close watch on new and upcoming employment and labor laws that can significantly impact our New York-based clients. Below we highlight some of the recently implemented and noteworthy state and city laws that take effect in the new year, a look ahead at what labor and employment legislation may be under consideration in the near future, and a reminder of those laws that went into effect in 2024.
Upcoming Changes in 2025
Increases to Minimum Wage and Exempt Salary Thresholds
The minimum wage will once again inch upward in New York state next year. Employees in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County must be paid at least $16.50 per hour as of January 1, 2025, up from $16 per hour currently. For all other employees in the state, the minimum wage will increase to $15.50 per hour, up from the current $15 per hour minimum wage.
The salary threshold for certain employees to be considered exempt from New York’s overtime requirements will also rise. Typically, employers must pay employees at least 1.5 times the minimum hourly wage for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Some positions, however, are exempt from this overtime requirement, provided that certain criteria are met, including a minimum salary threshold. Starting January 1, 2025, employees in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County must earn at least $64,350 to qualify for exempt status, while employees in the remainder of the state will need to be paid at least $60,405.80 annually.
Leave Law Developments
Starting January 1, 2025, pregnant employees are eligible for up to 20 hours of paid leave each year to use for prenatal medical care. The leave may be used for “health care services received by an employee during their pregnancy or related to such pregnancy, including physical examinations, medical procedures, monitoring and testing, and discussions with a health care provider related to the pregnancy medical care.” This new leave benefit is separate from and in addition to the state’s sick leave and paid family leave benefits. Eligible employees may take prenatal leave in hourly increments and are to be paid in hourly installments. The law applies to all private-sector employees and does not have to be accrued, meaning all 20 hours of leave are available immediately.
What the state giveth, the state taketh away. Starting July 31, 2025, New York employees will no longer be entitled to COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave. Currently, employees under a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19 are eligible for a certain amount of paid or unpaid leave, depending on employer size. With the COVID-19 pandemic firmly in the rearview, New York lawmakers included legislation in the latest budget bill to end the benefit next year, nearly five years after it was first enacted.
Other Employment-Related Matters
Starting January 1, 2025, employees will be eligible for worker’s compensation benefits for some mental health injuries incurred on the job. The new benefit is available to workers who experience “extraordinary” work-related stress. Previously, only first responders such as police officers and firefighters were eligible for worker’s compensation benefits based on this kind of injury. The law additionally clarifies that claims for worker’s compensation benefits cannot be denied simply because the stress at issue is of the same kind that “usually occurs in the normal work environment.”
Beginning March 4, 2025, retail employers with 10 or more employees in New York state must implement and provide training on a plan to help their staff prevent incidents of workplace violence. The Retail Worker Safety Act tasks the New York State Department of Labor with developing guidance and a model policy that employers may adopt to comply with the new law. Among other things, workplace policies will need to identify risk factors for violence in the workplace and cover reporting systems for any incidents. Employers will be required to give employees copies of these policies and conduct annual violence prevention training.
Last month at the polls, voters approved an amendment to the New York Constitution establishing protections against discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy (which covers reproductive healthcare and autonomy). Although these characteristics are already protected by the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law, employers should be aware that these characteristics are now constitutionally protected as well.
What We Are Tracking in 2025
A Ban on Noncompetition Agreements
As employers are aware, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently adopted a rule banning most new noncompetition agreements, which federal courts have since struck down. Although the FTC is currently challenging those rulings, the incoming Trump administration has not staked out a position on those appeals, which would leave any effort to do away with noncompete agreements to the individual states. To that end, the New York State Legislature may soon take another swing at banning noncompete clauses in employment agreements. State lawmakers passed a bill banning most noncompetition agreements in their last legislative session, but Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed the measure, as it would have broadly banned noncompetes with very few carve-outs. In vetoing the 2023 bill, Hochul said that she supported limiting noncompete agreements for “middle-class and low-wage workers” while also enabling businesses to “retain highly compensated talent” but took issue with the “one-size-fits-all” approach of the legislation. Recently, the state lawmaker who introduced the original bill has indicated that he is going to try again in 2025, and if he includes the carve-outs Hochul supports, New York employers may be dealing with a ban on noncompetes in 2025.
Sick Leave To Care for Pets
In October 2024, city lawmakers proposed a measure that would amend the city’s paid safe and sick leave law to allow employees to use paid sick leave to care for a pet companion or service animal that needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a physical illness, injury or health condition. Currently, employees may use safe and sick leave to care for themselves or a family member and to seek legal and social services assistance or take other safety measures if the employee or a family member is a victim of any act or threat of domestic violence or unwanted sexual contact, stalking, or human trafficking. The amendment would allow employees to use their allotted leave for their pets or service animals as well.
Don’t Forget About Employment Laws Passed This Year
Paid Lactation Breaks
A June 19, 2024 amendment to the New York Labor Law provides that employees are now eligible for a paid 30-minute lactation break every time they have a reasonable need to express breast milk (previously, employers did not have to compensate employees during these breaks). Should the lactation break exceed 30 minutes, employers must permit the employee to use existing paid break or meal time for the remainder of the lactation break. Employees are entitled to paid lactation breaks for up to three years following the birth of their child.
Freelance Agreements
The New York State Freelance Isn’t Free Law went into effect on August 28, 2024. The law requires employers to memorialize any agreements with freelance workers who are paid $800 or more for their services. The agreements must include certain provisions, such as an itemized list of services to be provided, the value of those services, and the rate or method of compensation. The law establishes other protections for freelancers, including rules regarding an employer’s obligation to make full and timely payments under the agreement and to maintain all written contracts for at least six years.
Clean Slate Law
New York’s Clean State Law took effect on November 16, 2024, and limits the actions employers can take in relation to a job applicant’s criminal history. The law requires the sealing of certain convictions after a designated period of time, after which employers cannot inquire into or make adverse decisions based on those convictions. Misdemeanor convictions are sealed three years after the defendant is released from incarceration, while felony convictions are sealed eight years after release from incarceration. If there was no sentence of incarceration, both misdemeanors and felonies are sealed from the date of the sentencing. Convictions for driving while impaired by alcohol are sealed after three years.
The law contains several exemptions. Non-drug-related Class A felony convictions, such as murder and arson, are exempt, as well as convictions for sexually violent offenses and sex crimes. Federal convictions and convictions from other states are not covered by the law and therefore are not sealed. Moreover, conviction records will not be sealed if the defendant has a subsequent criminal charge pending or has not completed their probation or parole for the conviction. The law also contains exceptions whereby employers are required by federal or state law to conduct a background check, such as professions in which the individual would be working with children, the elderly, individuals with disabilities or other vulnerable populations. Further, the law requires that employers provide applicants with a copy of the criminal history background check the employer receives, notify the applicant of their right to correct any inaccuracies, and provide a copy of the Article 23-A law, which specifies how and when employers may consider an applicant’s criminal background in a hiring decision.
New York City Workers’ Bill of Rights
New York City employers must now provide employees and contractors with a comprehensive guide to employee, applicant and independent contractor rights in the workplace. The Workers’ Bill of Rights covers numerous rights enforced by city, state and federal agencies, including those related to paid sick leave, paid family leave, minimum wage, antidiscrimination, pay transparency, the right to organize and freelance workers. Employers must display in the workplace and provide to employees a Know Your Rights at Work poster. The poster must be located in a conspicuous place at the worksite as well as online or on a mobile app if “such means are regularly used to communicate” with employees.
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New York state and city lawmakers continue to propose and enact laws that can have significant impacts on employers operating within New York state.
