There is no state employment law in California that defines part-time work as being less than a certain number of hours. Instead, it is generally up to the employer to define what “part-time” means.
The Labor Market Information Division of the California Employment Development Department has a non-legally binding definition of part-time work as fewer than 35 hours a week.1
According to California Labor Code 510(c), part-time workers presumably work less than 40 hours per week since it defines full-time work as at least 40 hours a week.
Meanwhile, for the purposes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare), part-time workers put in fewer than 30 hours a week.
Do I have any legal protections working part-time in California?
While there is no broad definition of part-time work in California, you do benefit from stronger legal protections than in other states. Some of these legal rights and protections include:
- 1 extra hour of pay if you make minimum wage and you work a split shift,2
- a minimum wage that is significantly higher than the national minimum, and
- paid sick days if you have at least 30 days of employment in the calendar year (currently workers get 40 hours/5 days of sick leave per year with an annual accrual cap of 80 hours/10 days) .3
In addition, like full-time workers, you have rights to:
- overtime pay (time-and-a-half pay for working more than 8 hours a day, more than 40 hours in a week, or on the seventh day of a workweek),
- minimum wage (which may be higher in your city or county than the state minimum wage),
- meal and rest periods,
- health insurance under the ACA (if your employer has 50 or more full-time employees, and you put in at least 30 hours a week),
- vacation pay (if your employer offers it),
- retirement plans (employers who have retirement plans must offer them to full- and part-time workers under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.)
- unemployment insurance,
- freedom from workplace harassment, and
- a discrimination-free workplace.
Note that if you leave a work shift early, you are entitled to pay only for the time you worked (unless you and your employer contracted otherwise).
Are there any federal laws that define part-time work?
There are no federal laws that state how many hours you have to work to be
- a full-time worker or
- a part-time worker.
There are a handful of laws that use a certain number of hours to define part-time work for specific circumstances, such as when you are entitled to health insurance:
- The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the federal law that generally governs workplace rules. However, the FLSA is silent on the distinction between full-time and part-time work.
- The U.S. Department of Labor, through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, defines part-time workers as those who usually work fewer than 35 hours per week.4 However, this definition is only used for statistical purposes and is not a legal definition.
- Also known as Obamacare, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you are part-time if you work less than 30 hours per workweek.5
- Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), if you complete 1,000 hours of work in a 12-month period, then you gain eligibility to participate in a retirement plan offered by your employer.6 This means that a little less than 19.5 hours per week is full-time employment under ERISA.
However, these and other laws that define part-time work only apply to specific circumstances. You may be considered a part-time worker by one law, but a full-time worker by another law that requires fewer hours.
Furthermore, employers can label a job as full- or part-time with little oversight. A part-time job can be a role that requires anywhere from 1 hour a week to 35 or 40.
What can I do if my employer is misclassifying me as part-time?
If your employer is calling your job a part-time role but is demanding full-time hours, you can file a misclassification lawsuit in California.
This lawsuit demands that you be properly treated in the workplace whether with full-time benefits or with part-time hours. The lawsuit also demands compensation for any wages or benefits that you have been deprived of in the past.
Many of these misclassification lawsuits become class actions. If you are being misclassified, there is a good chance that your employer is doing the same to other part-time workers.
Misclassification of part-time workers is not uncommon. Some employers see it as an opportunity to get more work from employees for less compensation. This saves on the company’s bottom line.
Additional reading
For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- Job attitudes of part-time vs. full-time workers: A meta-analytic review – Journal of Occupation and Organizational Psychology.
- Reconceptualizing the Nature and Consequences of Part-Time Work – Academy of Management Review.
- Why Do Part-Time Workers Earn Less? The Role of Worker and Job Skills – ILR Review.
- Part-Time Work: A Threat to Labor Standards? – Part-Time Prospects.
- Voluntary Part-Time Workers: A Growing Part of the Labor Force – Monthly Labor Review.