DOL announces May webinars to guide employers on youth labor rules

A summer volunteer or part-time schedule can turn into a wage-and-hour problem fast when teens are involved. The U.S. Department of Labor said its Wage and Hour Division will host a May webinar series to help employers comply with youth-employment rules before summer hiring begins.

The sessions are open to employers, young workers, parents, school counselors and human resources specialists. The department said the webinars will explain which jobs and tasks are off-limits for anyone under 18, how many hours young workers may legally work, and how child labor rules apply in state-specific seminars. The department framed the series as compliance assistance under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a signal that it wants mistakes prevented before seasonal schedules fill up.

For A Simple Gesture, the timing matters because the organization works through a volunteer model that can blur the line between community service and paid labor if summer projects expand. The nonprofit describes itself as a recurring food-drive operation that sends volunteers to collect nonperishable food from donors’ doorsteps and deliver it to local food pantries, schools and other nonprofits. Public pages say A Simple Gesture has more than 60 chapters, has provided over 7 million meals and was founded in 2011 by Jonathan Trivers.

That makes the Labor Department’s reminder especially relevant for coordinators who recruit youth for school service-learning projects, neighborhood food drives or short-term help during busy donation periods. A teen helping fill green bags or support a pantry drive is not automatically an employee, but once a nonprofit starts paying minors or assigning work-like duties, the rules tighten quickly. Federal child labor law generally bars nonagricultural employment under age 14, restricts the hours and types of work for minors under 16, and prohibits minors under 18 from hazardous occupations.

The Labor Department’s YouthRules materials say the division promotes positive and safe work experiences for teens by providing information on federal and state labor laws. For nonprofits that rely on volunteers, that means the practical next step is separating volunteer tasks from job tasks, checking age limits before summer staffing is set and making sure supervisors understand where supervision and safety rules start to matter. In a food-recovery operation built on doorstep pickups, pantry partnerships and community trust, one misclassified assignment can create avoidable risk just as demand for summer help rises.