Alaska Minimum Wage and Overtime Exemptions Laws


Executive exemption

Alaska exempts executive or supervisor employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. AK Statute 23.10.055(a)(9)(A) To qualify for the exemption, an employee must meet the requirements established under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, except that the employee must also be paid a minimum weekly salary of at least two times Alaska’s minimum wage for the first 40 hours worked in a workweek, not including board, lodging or other expenses reimbursed by the employer. See FLSA: Executive Employee Exemption; AK Statute 23.10.055(b), (c)(1)


Administrative exemption

Alaska exempts administrative employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. AK Statute 23.10.055(a)(9)(A) To qualify for the exemption, an employee must meet the requirements established under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, except that the employee must also be paid a minimum weekly salary of at least two times Alaska’s minimum wage for the first 40 hours worked in a workweek, not including board, lodging or other expenses reimbursed by the employer. See FLSA: Administrative Employee Exemption; AK Statute 23.10.055(b), (c)(1)


Professional exemption

Alaska exempts professional employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. AK Statute 23.10.055(a)(9)(A) To qualify for the exemption, an employee must meet the requirements established under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, except that the employee must also be paid a minimum weekly salary of at least two times Alaska’s minimum wage for the first 40 hours worked in a workweek, not including board, lodging or other expenses reimbursed by the employer. See FLSA: Professional Employee Exemption; AK Statute 23.10.055(b), (c)(1)


Outside salesman exemption

Alaska exempts outside salesmen from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. AK Statute 23.10.055(a)(9)(B) To qualify as an outside salesman, an employee must:

  • customarily and regularly work away from the employer’s place of business; and
  • as a primary duty, make sales or contracts for sales, consignments, or shipments, or obtaining orders for services or for use of facility to be paid for by the customer

AK Statute 23.10.055(c)(3)

Salesmen employed on straight commission basis

Alaska exempts salesmen who are paid on a straight commission basis from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. AK Statute 23.10.055(a)(9)(B) To qualify as an outside salesman, an employee must:

  • customarily and regularly works on the employer’s premises;
  • be compensate solely on a commission basis (does not receive a guaranteed wage or salary) – AK Admin. Code 8.15.910(a)(16); and
  • as a primary duty, make sales or contracts for sales, consignments, or shipments, or obtaining orders for services or for use of facility to be paid for by the customer

AK Statute 23.10.055(c)(4)

For purposes of a straight commission employment arrangement, commission may be calculated by using:

  • a percentage of the value of gross or net sales,
  • an formula for the value of goods or service sold that is agreed upon by the employee, or
  • a flat rate for reaching a particular sales volume or the sale of a particular item.

AK Admin. Code 8.15.910(a)(16)


Computer employee exemption

Alaska exempts computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer, or other similarly skilled worker from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. AK Statute 23.10.055(a)(9)(C) To qualify for the exemption, an employee must meet the requirements established under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. FLSA: Computer Employees; AK Statute 23.10.055(c)(2)


Other minimum wage and overtime exemptions

Alaska law specifically exempts the following categories of employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements:

  • agriculture employees, including those employed in all branches of farming, including cultivation and tillage of soil; dairy; production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of agricultural or horticultural commodities; raising livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry; or any other practice performed as an incident to or in conjunction with the farming operation, including forestry, lumbering operations, preparation of produce or goods for market or delivery to storage or the market;
  • employees that catch, trap, cultivate, farm, net, or take fish, shellfish, or any other form of aquatic animal or vegetable life;
  • employees engaged in hand picking shrimp;
  • employees engaged in domestic services, including baby-sitter;
    • Domestic service is defined as “a service or activity performed in or about a private home by an individual that is employed or paid by the owner or occupant of the private home or a family member of the owner or occupant of the private home. AK Admin. Code 8.15.910(a)(6) It includes such activities as:
      • baby-sitter;
      • cook;
      • butler;
      • valet;
      • maid;
      • housekeeper;
      • governess;
      • janitor;
      • laundress;
      • caretaker;
      • handyman;
      • gardener;
      • footman;
      • groom; and
      • chauffeur of automobiles for family use
  • employees of the United States or by the State of Alaska or any of its subdivisions, except public school bus drivers, including prisoners not on furlough detained or confined in prison facilities;
  • individuals engaged in the nonprofit activities of a nonprofit organization as defined by 26 U.S.C. 513, including religious, charitable, cemetery, educational, or other nonprofit organization, where the individualsโ€™ services are provided voluntarily so that there is no employer-employee relationship;
  • employees that deliver newspapers to consumers;
  • employees employed solely as a watchman or caretaker of a plant or property that has not been productive for at least four (4) months;
  • employees that search for placer or hard rock minerals;
  • employees under the age of 18 that are employed not more than 30 hours per week;
  • employees at nonprofit educational or child care facility that serve as a parent of children who are in residence at the facility and the employment requires the employee to reside at the facility and is compensate on a cash basis not including room and board at an annual rate of $10,000 for an unmarried person or $15,000 for a married couple;
  • an employee who:
    • drives a taxicab,
    • is compensated for taxicab services exclusively by customers of the service,
    • whose written contractual arrangements with owners of taxicab vehicles, taxicab permits, or radio dispatch services are based upon flat contractual rates and not based on a percentage share of the individual’s receipts from customers, and
    • whose written contract with owners of taxicab vehicles, taxicab permits, or radio dispatch services specifically provides that the contract places no restrictions on hours worked by the individual or on areas in which the individual may work except to comply with local ordinances;
  • an employee who is a licensed under AK Statute 08.54 and works for a registered guide-outfitter or master guide-outfitter licensed under AK Statute 08.54, but only for the first 60 workdays in which the employee works for the registered guide-outfitter or master guide-outfitter during a calendar year;
  • an individual engaged in activities for a nonprofit religious, charitable, civic, cemetery, recreational, or educational organization where the services are rendered to the organization under a work activity requirement of Alaska Stat. 47.27 (Alaska temporary assistance program), such that an employer-employee relationship does not exist
  • an individual who
    • provides emergency medical services on a voluntary basis;
    • serves with a full-time fire department on a voluntary basis only; or
    • provides ski patrol services on a voluntary basis;
  • a student participating in a University of Alaska practicum described under AK Statute 14.40.065
  • provides emergency medical services on a voluntary basis;
  • an individual employed by a motor vehicle who has a primary duty to
    • receive, analyze, or refer requests for motor vehicles for service, repair, or analysis;
    • arrange financing for selling motor vehicles and related products and services that are added or included as part of the sale; or
    • solicit, sell, lease, or exchange motor vehicles.

AK Statute 23.10.055(a)


Overtime only exemptions

Alaska law specifically exempts the following categories of employees from its overtime requirements only. Minimum wage requirements still apply:

  • employees who work for an employer with fewer than four employee in the regular course of business ;
  • employees who handle, pack, store, pasteurize, dry, prepare in their raw or natural state, or can agricultural or horticultural commodities for market, or in making cheese, butter, or other dairy products;
  • employees who work for an employer that is engaged in small mining operations and employs fewer than 12 employees, so long as the employee does not work more than 12 hours a day or 56 hours a week during a period or periods lasting no longer than 14 workweeks in the aggregate in a calendar year during the mining season, as defined by the commissioner of the Department of Employment and Workforce Development;
  • employees working in agriculture;
  • employees who work in connection with the publication of a weekly, semiweekly, or daily newspaper with a circulation of less than 1,000;
  • employers who work as a switchboard operator for a public telephone exchange with fewer than 750 stations;
  • employees in an otherwise exempted employment or proprietor in a retail or service establishment engaged in handling telegraphic, telephone, or radio messages for the public under an agency or contract arrangement with a telegraph or communications company where the telegraph message or communications revenue of the agency does not exceed $500 a month;
  • employees working as seamen;
  • employees who plant or tend trees, cruise, survey, buck, or fell timber, or prepare or transport logs or other forestry products to the mill, processing plant, railroad, or other transportation terminal, so long as their employer does not employ more than 12 employees in the forestry or lumbering operations;
  • employees who work as outside buyers or poultry, eggs, cream, or milk in their raw or natural state;
  • casual employees;
  • employees who work at a hospital whose employment includes the provision of medical services;
  • employees who perform work under a flexible work hour plan if the plan is included in a collective bargaining agreement;
  • employees who perform work under a voluntary flexible work hour plan if:
    • the employee and employer have signed a written agreement and the agreement has been filed with Alaskaโ€™s Department of Labor and Workforce Services, and
    • Alaskaโ€™s Department of Labor and Workforce Services has issued a certificate approving the plan that states the work is for 40 hours a week and not more than 10 hours a day, except an employer must pay employees subject to such a flexible work hour plan one and one-half times their regular rate for hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek or 10 hours in a workday;
  • employees who work as line haul truck drivers for trips that exceed 100 road miles one way, so long as their employerโ€™s compensation system includes overtime pay for work over 40 hours in a workweek or 8 hours in a workday and the compensation system requires a rate of pay comparable to the rate required by law;
  • employees who work as community health aides by a local or regional health organization pursuant to AK Statute 18.28.100;
  • employees who work as mechanics primarily engaged in servicing automobiles, light trucks, and motor homes, if the mechanic:
    • works on a flat-rate basis for a non-manufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling or servicing motor vehicles;
    • has signed a written agreement that specifies the mechanicโ€™s flat hourly rate of pay and the automotive manual or manuals on which the flat rate is to be bsed
    • is compensated for all hours worked for the employer up to and including eight hours a day and 40 hours a week at an hourly rate that is not less than the greater of
      • 75 percent of the flat hourly rate of pay agreed on by the employee, or
      • twice the state minimum wage
    • is compensated for all hours worked in any capacity for that employer in excess of eight hours a day or 40 hours a week at one and one-half times the rate at established immediately above
  • employees who work under a voluntary written agreement addressing the trading of work shifts among employees if;
    • the employee works for an air carrier subject to subchapter II of the Railway Labor Act (45 U.S.C. 181-88), including customer service representatives
    • the trading agreement is not a flexible work hour plan, as described above
    • the trading agreement is filed with the employer
    • the trading agreement states that the employee is not entitled to receive overtime for any hours worked by the employee when the employee voluntarily works those hours under a shift trading practice under which the employee has the opportunity, in the same or other work weeks, to reduce hours worked by voluntarily offering a shift for trade or reassignment;
  • employees working as members of flight crews for an employer subject to the Railway Labor Act (45 U.S.C. 181-88), including pilots, co-pilots, flight engineers, and flight attendants.

AK Statute 23.10.060(a)


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