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Due to the new "Wage and Hour Law" in New York State, employers are required to have all new employees fill out a form at hire time and ALSO once a year.

New York defers to federal regulation for overtime and exempt employees. Is it safe to assume that programmers are exempt if they are salaried under the "computer professional" category?

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While I'm not an HR person, I believe the answer is: "Yes, given that your employee is exempt from state overtime requirements" (page 4 of http://www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/PDFs/wage-theft-prevention-act-faq.pdf)

Workers except from state overtime requirements, again based on a quick Google search, include workers classified as professionals. (Source).

However, if you have a question, it makes sense to seek out an attorney and get an actual answer. I'm not a lawyer or HR person - I'm just a layman trying to parse the law.

-In this legal context, "professional" is a term of art, meaning one holding a professional license. Salaried employees are not exempt from overtime in NY State unless they hold a professional license (Like lawyers who are licensed by the state). This is a very commonly misunderstood area, but salaried employees are NOT exempt from overtime pay in New York State, and far too many workers are deprived of their rights as a result of this misunderstanding.

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The word "All" is probably the reason no one has answered this. You might be able to say "Most" programmers are covered via that exemption, but no one likes to be quoted as saying "All."

The best way to get an answer is to talk to an HR person for an hour and explain your situation.

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I am going to guess that the OP probably knows more about these things than an average HR person... – TimJ♦ Jun 6 '11 at 13:22
Probably true, I was offering a suggestion as to why no one had provided an answer. Having said, that I have worked at a company where during an audit an auditor thought I should have been hourly (it was caused by my own stupidity for tracking the amount of hours I worked). It was straightened out rather easily. An HR consultant (even a higher end one) could answer his question in very little time for a fairly minimum fee. – Chris Kluis Jun 6 '11 at 14:55

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