Not necessarily. Under federal and Texas law, all employees must receive at least minimum wage for the first forty hours of work and overtime for work time beyond at a rate of one and a half the rate paid for the first forty hours unless an exception applies under the law. Texas and federal wage laws contain an overtime exemption to receive a straight annual rate regardless of hours worked. Under this exemption, employees receive an annual salary rather than an hourly wage.
Only certain types of employees are exempt under this particular exemption: professional, administrative and executive employees. Your actual job may or may not be truly exempt if you receive a salary. Receiving a salary does not automatically make you exempt. Your employer telling you that you are exempt also does not make it so. You can be non-exempt – still eligible for overtime pay – and still receive a salary from your employer.
Salary vs. hourly pay in Texas
Most people see receiving a salary has a sign that you have arrived at a “real job” and no longer treated like a wage slave. Often with a salary comes more freedom to come to work a few minutes late without losing pay for leaving early for various reasons. That certainly counts as a benefit to receiving a salary (sometimes, not all employers are so flexible) but you should weigh that benefit against what you may lose as a salaried employee.
Many salaried employees work more than forty hours. The pay you receive through your salary may be less than you would receive as an hourly employee, especially with overtime. Any raise accompanying your move to salary may be eaten by the lack of overtime. (Of course, the other side of that coin is if you work a job where you are salaried and put in less than forty hours you probably make a lot more per hour with that job than whatever hourly work you did before.)
Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas employment lawyers for overtime pay claims
If you are working more than forty hours and misclassified, you may be losing a lot of earned pay. You may recover unpaid wages and overtime, attorney’s fees and other monetary relief. Employment lawyers in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas represent employees in overtime pay and other wage claims.