On January 17, 2026, then-Governor Chris Murphy signed into law Assembly Bill 3451 which amends New Jersey’s Family Leave Act (“NJFLA”) and broadens the overall scope of employees covered under the act. The amendments also provide job protections for employees who take leave in connection with their receipt of temporary disability insurance benefits or family temporary disability insurance benefits and define the sequence in which certain types of leave may be taken. The new amendments go into effect on July 17, 2026.
Under the current version of the NJFLA, eligible employees are provided with 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave for a qualifying event in a given 24-month period. The qualifying events include to care for a family member with a serious health condition, bonding with a newborn or newly adopted child, and to care for a child whose school is closed due to a public health emergency. Employees are eligible for leave if they work for an employer with at least 30 employees (within and outside of the state of New Jersey), if they have been employed for at least 12 months, and worked at least 1,000 hours in the past 12-month period.
Under these new amendments, employees are now eligible to take leave sooner and coverage is expanded to smaller employers. In particular, employees no longer have to wait 12 months and 1,000 hours to become eligible for leave. Instead, employees become eligible for leave after three (3) months of employment and after having worked 250 hours in the 12-month period preceding the leave. Additionally, the prior 30-employee requirement for coverage is reduced and employers with at least 15 employees are now required to provide leave under NJFLA. The amount of leave available to eligible employees is still 12 weeks in each 24-month period.
On top of the expanded eligibility, the new amendments also provide that leave taken pursuant to temporary disability benefits or family temporary disability benefits is job-protected leave and not only a money benefit. Upon return to work, employees will be entitled to be placed in the same position they held before the leave, and taking a “disability” leave does not affect their eligibility to take leave under NJFLA. Additionally, employees who are eligible for either earned sick leave and/or disability benefits leave are now permitted to choose which type of leave they take and they are not allowed to receive more than one kind of paid leave at a time. This potentially allows employees to choose the overall sequence of leave they take and stack them in the order they choose.
In preparation for the July 17, 2026 effective date of these amendments, employers who may not have previously been required to provide leave under NJFLA should evaluate their workforce numbers to determine whether they are now required to provide leave under NJFLA. Additionally, employers should evaluate their record keeping procedures to ensure they are keeping track of employees’ eligibility for earned sick leave, disability benefits leave, FMLA and/or NJFLA leave. Lastly, employers should revise their leave-of-absence policies to reflect these amendments and ensure that their employees are properly informed of their leave policies.
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