The U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday that its Wage and Hour Division will be adding 100 investigators to build out its enforcement team nationwide.
In fiscal year 2021, the division collected $230 million in wages owed to 190,000 workers, and division representatives also conducted 4,700 outreach events to educate employers and workers about workplace rights and responsibilities, the department said.
“Adding 100 investigators to our team is an important step in the right direction. We anticipate significantly more hiring activity later in fiscal year 2022,” Acting Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman said in a statement. “While appropriations will determine our course of action, we are optimistic we will be able to bring new talented professionals onboard to expand our diverse team.”
The investigators’ job is to determine whether employers are paying workers and affording them their rights as the law requires; helping ensure that law-abiding employers are not undercut by employers who violate the law; promoting compliance through outreach and public education initiatives; and supporting efforts to combat worker retaliation and worker misclassification as independent contractors.
In November, the Labor Department launched an ongoing education, outreach and enforcement initiative to ensure that employers pay caregivers “their rightful wages and honor all protections afforded them by law.”
At the time, a Labor Department spokesperson told the McKnight’s Business Daily: “With this initiative, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division will focus on care workers in senior living and care facilities, as well as other areas where care workers are employed. This would include compliance assistance efforts with the industry to explain what the law requires so that they understand what it is to be in compliance.”
