California’s Labor Commissioner Publishes Updated Wage Theft Notice

Under the California Wage Theft Protection Act (Cal. Labor Code section 2810.5), all employers are required to provide each employee with a written notice containing specified information at the time of hire, including wage and paid sick leave information.

The notice must be in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment-related information to the employee.

This year, California's legislature passed Senate Bill 616 and Assembly Bill 636, which affect the employee notice requirement and therefore, the state's earlier model notice.

Senate Bill 616 increases the amount of paid sick leave employers are required to provide. Assembly Bill 636 requires an employer to include in the notice information regarding the existence of a federal or state disaster declaration applicable to the county or counties in which the employee will be employed and that was issued within 30 days before the employee's first day of employment. These revisions to California law will take effect Jan. 1, 2024.

In advance of the changes in the law, the Labor Commissioner has published an updated Notice to Employee template that specifies the new required amount of paid sick leave, as well as a section for employers to provide notice of disaster declarations, as needed.

So far, the Labor Commissioner has only published an English-language version of the notice. Employers can go to the Labor Commissioner's website to check for updates to other versions of the template, which should be available soon. 

Susan Groff and Cecilie Read are attorneys with Jackson Lewis in Los Angeles. © 2023. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.