HR 434
Take Home Exam #1

1. What changes are occurring in the workforce relative to the kinds of work employees are performing?
Before industrial mechanics, companies would spend up to 40% on pay and benefits for employees. With technology doing a majority of the manual labor, base pay costs and employment has declined dramatically. Now less than 20% of the workforce is doing manufacturing jobs. Now most of the workforce is in service related jobs. In contrast to manufacturing, the cost of labor compensation can be as high as 80% of revenue. Also, firms are reducing the employment ranks while increasing the responsibilities of the remaining staff.
2. Discuss what is meant by the term exempt employee and the various exemption criteria established for identifying this group of workers.
An exempt employee is an employee who, because of his/her position duties, is exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). "With few exceptions, to be exempt an employee must, be paid at least $23,600 per year and be paid on a salary basis, and also perform exempt job duties. "An employee who meets the salary level tests and also the salary basis tests is exempt only if he or she performs exempt job duties. These FLSA exemptions are limited to employees who perform relatively high-level work. Whether the duties of a particular job qualify as exempt depends on what they are. Job titles or position descriptions are of limited usefulness in this determination. The actual job tasks must be evaluated, along with how the particular job tasks go along with the employer's overall operations. There are three typical categories of exempt job duties, called executive, professional and administrative.
3. Briefly describe the three major classes of society and their seven subsets.
The three major classes of society are upper, middle, and lower-class. They