The United States Department of Labor (DOL) announced a final rule on Jan. 9 revising its interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) classification provision to determine whether a worker may be considered an independent contractor. The rule will require that workers be considered employees rather than contractors when they are “economically dependent” on a company. The final rule rescinds the 2021 Independent Contractor Rule and replaces it. It largely mirrors the agency’s October 2022 proposed rule, adopting a six-factor, “totality-of-the-circumstances” framework for analyzing worker-employer relationships.
The DOL will consider six factors when examining the relationship between a worker and a potential employer.
