Articles

• Minimum wage:
• $16.50/hr.* – NYC, Long Island, Westchester
• $15.50/hr.* – Remainder of New York State
• Exempt salary thresholds (administrative / executive):
• $1,237.50/wk. – NYC, LI, Westchester
• $1,161.65/wk. – All other regions

NYS Department of Labor now requires covered employers conducting mass layoffs or plant closings to disclose in their Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice (“WARN”) notice form if technological innovation or automation, like artificial intelligence, contributed to a mass layoff or plant closure.

All persons and businesses that own or license computerized data, which includes “private information” (i.e., personal identifying information or “PII”) of New York residents, must notify those residents of a security breach involving their PII within 30 days of discovery of the breach. Recent amendments expanded the definition of “personal identifying information” to include medical and health insurance information (medical history, treatment, and health insurance policy number or subscriber ID number).

As of June 8, 2025, employers of 11 or more employees must pay employees working in New York State who are absent from work due to jury duty service, $72 per day for the first three days of jury service (up from $40). Jurors who receive their salary during their entire jury duty service will not be paid by the state.

Employers with four or more employees in New York City must post their lactation accommodation policy conspicuously in the workplace and on the intranet if the employer has an intranet. Model policies and other materials can be found here: https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/lactation.page 

New York employers must pay “manual workers” in the for-profit sector (workers who spend more than 25% of working time engaged in physical labor), on a weekly basis, within 7 days of wages being earned. NY Labor Law §191(a)(i).  However, there was a split among New York courts as to whether a manual worker could recover 100% liquidated damages against an employer who paid them late, such as biweekly or semimonthly, instead of weekly.

To address this issue, New York’s FY 2026 budget amends Labor Law §198(1-a) to reduce penalties for employers for first-time offenses. For a first offense, employers must pay no more than 100% interest on late payments (if workers were paid at least semi-monthly), calculated using a daily interest rate for each day that payment is late based on the annual interest rate then in effect. Repeat offenders face liquidated damages of 100% of the total wages due.

New York has strict rules relating to the employment of minors under age 18. These include limits on the length of shifts, time of day, the number of hours minors can work depending on age, and whether school is in session, and prohibitions on performing tasks or occupations deemed dangerous. The penalties for child labor law violations were recently increased. Effective May 9, 2025, employers can be subject to penalties up to $10,000 for a first violation (previously up to $1,000); between $2,000 and $25,000 for a second violation (previously up to $2,000); and between $10,000 and $55,000 for subsequent violations (previously up to $3,000). If a minor is seriously injured or dies while illegally employed, the penalty is three times the maximum penalty and can reach as high as $175,000 for a third or subsequent violation. The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) will create an electronic database, digitizing youth working papers, effective 2027.

Employers with 10 or more retail employees in New York State must implement strategies to reduce the risk of workplace violence to their employees and increase employee safety. A “retail store" means a store that sells consumer commodities at retail and which is not primarily engaged in the sale of food for consumption on the premises. Specifically, covered employers must:

• Distribute to retail the employees, upon hire and at the time of training, a notice (in English and in employee’s primary language) containing the employer’s written workplace-violence prevention policy, and the information provided at the training program;

• Conduct employee workplace violence prevention training: upon hire and every 2 years thereafter (49 or fewer employees), or upon hire and annually thereafter (50 or more employees); and

• Use the model retail workplace violence prevention policy and model interactive training program developed by the DOL or one that equals or exceeds the minimum standards provided by such model training program.

• As of January 1, 2027, retail employers with 500 or more employees must implement silent response buttons and provide employee training on the use of the silent response button.
 

As noted in our prior Client Alert, NYC has adopted rules to be applied for the use of prenatal personal care leave and clarified penalties and remedies for violations of the state’s new prenatal care leave, so paid prenatal personal care leave policies should be updated to reflect eligibility, accrual, increments, documentation, and notice rules.

New York’s COVID paid sick leave law has ended, so New York employers can remove this leave policy from their employee handbooks. Standard NYS and NYC paid sick leave requirements remain.