US employers are facing a fast-changing labour law backdrop as federal agencies accelerate efforts to enact the Trump administration’s policy agenda, according to a Littler report.
The 2026 Labor Day Report – now in its ninth edition – highlighted 10 key trends impacting US employers, chief among them two proposed new rules from the US Department of Labor related to regulating independent contractor status and joint-employment standards under federal wage-and-hour laws.
The two proposals more or less follow the approach set out at the end of the first Trump administration that were effectively quashed by the Biden administration.
Independent contractor status would be determined by a two-factor test – whether an employer has a right of control over a worker and whether a worker has an opportunity to realise a profit (or loss). The joint-employment rule seeks to establish if an employee works for two or more employers where the employers are ‘sufficiently associated’ with each other that they would be classified ‘joint employers’.
The DOL also repealed a Biden-era rule that would have increased the minimum salary necessary to qualify for the so-called ‘white-collar’ exemption where employers wouldn’t need to compensate executive, administrative or professional employees for working overtime, alongside other minimum wage and record-keeping exemptions.
Other key trends include the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) restoring a working quorum, enabling it to...
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