The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulates minimum wage and overtime payment provisions for employees. Most employers and employees in the United States are subject to the FLSA.
Among other things, the FLSA requires employers to compensate their employees for all hours employees are “suffered or permitted” to work. This means that an employer must compensate its employees for all hours employees actually work and all hours during which employees are required to remain available for their next assignments.
However, the FLSA also provides various exemptions from minimum wage and overtime payment provisions. Among these, the most common are the “white collar” exemptions. The white collar exemptions apply mainly to executive, administrative and professional (EAP) employees, but they also include outside sales personnel and certain computer and highly compensated employees.