On November 15, 2024, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated the Department of Labor’s 2024 regulations for executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) employees, which raised the minimum salary employers would be required to pay EAP employees to maintain their overtime exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.[1] Absent extraordinary relief from the Fifth Circuit in the near term, the January 1, 2025, deadline to increase minimum salaries for exempt EAP employees to $58,656 is no longer in effect, and the previous $43,888 increase mandate effective July 1, 2024, was likewise deemed invalid. Employers are therefore not required to adjust the pay of current employees who otherwise meet the EAP exemption but have salaries below these thresholds. The order also vacates the regulation’s increase to $151,164 for the “highly compensated employee” salary threshold.

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