On April 21, 2008, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (”WHD”) issued a new opinion letter on the administrative exception to the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (”FLSA”). 

In the letter, the WHD found that a Product Technology Application and Marketing Analyst (”PTA”) was an exempt employee under the FLSA.  The PTA’s primary responsibility was to work independently with the company’s engineering team to measure the performance of new products.  The PTA spent approximately 30 percent of her time as a liaison to the company’s sales team, and was the sale representatives’ primary point of contact for technical advice. The remainder of the PTA’s time was spent performing standardized tests on the company’s products, and writing reports summarizing the results and making comparisons to competitors’ products.  

An employee is exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements only if: (1)  the employee is compensated on a salary or fee basis at a rate of not less than $455 per week, (2)  the employee’s primary duty consists of the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers; and (3) the primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.  29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a). 

The WHD concluded that the PTA met the requirements of this test because (1) the PTA met the salary requirement; (2) “work directly related to the management or general business operations” includes the work that the PTA performed in such functional areas as quality control, research, and marketing; and (3) the PTA exercised “discretion and independent judgment” when the PTA carried out major testing assignments and made decisions about how the employer’s products compared against competitors’ products.