The Utah Labor Law Guide

Minimum wage refers to the lowest hourly wage an employer can legally pay to its nonexempt employees.

In the state of Utah, that overall figure tracks closely with the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour

Utah law bans local government bodies from enacting a minimum wage that is higher than federal minimum wage.

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In addition, tipped employees technically only need to be paid $2.13 per hour, but employers themselves must make up the difference to reach the $7.25 threshold if tips don't push employees' incomes above the mark.

Utah has no overtime requirement different from the federal standard. For employees exceeding the average 40-hour work week, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires businesses to extend overtime pay to all nonexempt employees at a rate of 1.5 times the rate of their regular hourly rate.

Utah does not have a meal or rest break law for adult employees. Utah employers should therefore follow federal regulations for meal and rest breaks. While federal law doesn't require businesses to offer meal and rest breaks, it does stipulate certain regulations if they choose to offer them. 

Under the FLSA, employers that offer short 5- to 20-minute breaks need to consider those periods payable work hours and may not withhold them from the worker's salary. This provision doesn't extend to meal times themselves. 

Under Utah law, minors under age 18 must be provided with at least a 30 minute meal break within the first 5 hours of their shift. Minors must also be provided with a 10 minute paid rest break for every 4 hours worked, and minors cannot work more than 3 hours without a rest break.

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Utah leaves decisions for handling leave and holidays up to the individual business owner. While employers can opt to provide time off for a holiday, there's no specific requirement for them to do so. However, employers must honor any contractual agreements they've entered into with employees, including any provisions in those contracts that extend a predefined amount of leave or holiday time off. 

Vacation leave
Utah has no laws mandating businesses to offer vacation leave. Business owners are required to honor any contractual agreement they've voluntarily entered into with an employee if it mentions a certain predetermined period of vacation time. 

Paid sick leave
Utah doesn't mandate any form of paid or unpaid sick leave for private sector employees. If an employee's contract provides for a certain amount of leave time, private business employers will nevertheless be required to honor it. In addition, State employees can accrue a maximum of four hours of leave per payment period. 

Holidays
Private sector businesses in Utah aren't forced by either state or national law to provide holiday time off. They can choose to offer either paid or unpaid time off at their own discretion. Public sector employees have paid holiday leave on all 11 state holidays.

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Utah has its own state-specific requirements for minors in the workforce. Minors under age 16 have the following hours of work restrictions:

• Cannot work during school hours

• Cannot work more than three hours per day on a school day

• Cannot work more than 18 hours per week in a school week

• Cannot work more than 8 hours on a non-school day

• Cannot work more than 40 hours in a non-school week. Cannot work before 7 AM or after 7 PM when school is in session (9 PM from June 1 to Labor Day)

In addition, minors are restricted to only certain types of work. Under Utah law, minors 16 or older may work in all non-hazardous occupations. However, minors 14-15 years of age may generally only work in non-hazardous occupations such as retail food services, auto service stations, janitorial work, lawn care, and cleaning. They may not operate motor vehicles or use hoists and they may not work in hazardous occupations. 

Most Utah employers are also required to follow federal child labor regulations, which narrow the acceptable range of work opportunities for minors to a few select fields.

As is noted above, Utah businesses must also offer minors a 30-minute meal break within at least 5 hours of the workday start. Minors are also entitled to a paid 10-minute rest break for every 4 hours worked and may not work more than 3 hours without a rest break.

Utah must follow the federal government's anti-discrimination laws in its hiring and firing process. This means there are strict prohibitions against making hiring or firing decisions based upon a person protected characteristics including but not limited to:

• Race

• Color

• Religion

• Sex

• National Origin

• Age

• Disability

In addition, Utah's own Anti-Discrimination Act widens these prohibitions to include gender identity for businesses with more than 15 employees. 

Hiring
Private sector employers in Utah are prohibited from discrimination in hiring decisions. That means an employer may not refuse to interview or hire a candidate because of their protected characteristics (see list above). 

In addition, Utah forbids public sector employers from asking about an applicant's criminal history early in the application process. They can ask, but they have to wait until after making a provisional offer of employment to that person. This is meant to avoid “preventative discrimination” as a way of ensuring the candidate's merits are duly considered. This is called a ban-the-box law.

Firing
In terms of Utah's termination requirements, it's an at-will employment state, so an employer doesn't need a specific reason to fire someone as long as the reason is not unlawful under, for example, federal and state anti-discrimination laws. 

Final Paychecks
Employers must deliver a terminated or laid off employee's last paycheck within 24 hours of their termination, under Utah's Final Paycheck law. Employees who resign must be paid their final wages by the next regularly scheduled payday.