Labor Department restores overtime exemption rules, Dollar General managers should note

A manager title at Dollar General still will not settle the overtime question. The Labor Department has restored the exemption language for executive, administrative and professional workers, and store leaders need to check whether their pay and day-to-day duties actually clear the federal test.

The department said May 14 that it published a technical amendment restoring the operative 2019 text after federal court judgments vacated the 2024 final rule. The change took effect immediately. The standard salary level remains $684 a week, and the highly compensated employee threshold stays at $107,432 a year. DOL guidance also says exempt status depends on both duties and salary, not job titles, and employers can count nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments, if paid at least annually, toward up to 10% of the salary level.

For Dollar General managers and assistant managers, the practical question is whether the job looks exempt on paper but nonexempt in practice. Workers should verify their job descriptions, salary basis and weekly hours, especially if they routinely work long shifts, cover register or freight, handle customer service and other hourly tasks, or are expected to manage the store without meaningful authority over staffing, discipline or pay. Those are the warning signs that often justify a second look at classification.

The issue lands in a big workforce. Dollar General said in its 2025 annual report that it employed about 194,200 full-time and part-time workers as of Feb. 28, 2025, including divisional and regional managers, district managers, store managers, other store employees and distribution center, fleet and administrative workers. That scale means a classification change can affect a large slice of the chain at once.

It also comes against a familiar legal backdrop. Dollar General has faced recurring wage-and-hour disputes over manager status and off-the-clock work, including claims involving store managers, assistant store managers and lead sales associates. For store-level managers, the immediate takeaway is straightforward: if the title, the duties and the paycheck do not line up, HR or payroll should review the classification before overtime is denied again.