Effective January 1, 2012, the required minimum pay/salary for those employees exempt from overtime under the California computer professional exemption is increasing. According to the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), which announced the increase on November 4, to qualify for the exemption an employee must be paid a salary of at least $81,026.25 annually ($6,752.19 monthly) or a minimum hourly rate of $38.89, an increase of 2.5%.

Employers with employees covered by the computer-related professional exemption should keep in mind that there are important differences between the federal and California exemptions, which we set out below.