DOL restores overtime exemption rules, Big Lots workers need duties test

Big Lots store leaders and assistant managers can be treated as overtime-exempt only if their actual work, not just their title, fits the federal duties test. The Labor Department’s restored rule keeps the salary floor at $684 a week for most executive, administrative and professional employees, and sets the highly compensated employee threshold at $107,432 a year.

The technical amendment, published May 14, took effect immediately when it hit the Federal Register. In plain terms, the department is clearing out the 2024 regulatory language that a Texas court vacated and putting the 2019 text back in place. Andrew Rogers, the Wage and Hour Division administrator, said the agency wants the duties, salary basis and salary level requirements for the section 13(a)(1) exemptions to be clearly framed for workers and employers.

For Big Lots supervisors, the key question is whether the job still looks exempt when the store is short-staffed and the manager is spending hours on freight, resets, register coverage and closing tasks. A salaried title alone does not settle the issue. The Labor Department says job titles do not determine exempt status; specific duties and salary must satisfy all of the rules. The same guidance says employers can count nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive pay, including commissions paid at least annually, toward up to 10 percent of the standard salary level.

That makes classification worth a hard look inside a chain that has been under unusual pressure. Big Lots filed for Chapter 11 on Sept. 9, 2024, and its bankruptcy cases were later converted to Chapter 7 effective Nov. 10, 2025. The company said in its 2024 annual report that it operated 1,392 stores and an e-commerce platform as of Feb. 3, 2024. As the chain has shrunk, sold stores and shifted locations, duties and schedules for managers and assistant managers have likely changed as well.

Those shifts matter because Big Lots has faced wage-and-hour scrutiny before. Earlier litigation accused the company of treating some store managers and assistant managers as exempt even though they spent much of their time on non-managerial work, and the company later settled a California wage-and-hour case for $7 million. For workers who want to know where they stand now, the Labor Department says its helpline is 866-4US-WAGE, and employers can use the PAID self-reporting program to resolve certain minimum wage, overtime and FMLA issues.

The bigger takeaway is simple: if a Big Lots manager’s week is built around floor work, coverage and cross-training, the exemption analysis may not match the badge on the door. With the 2019 rule back in force and the 2024 rule still tied up in litigation, the safest move is to check the pay structure, the actual duties and the records that show how the job is really being performed.