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Daylight Saving Shift: Do 3rd Shift Workers Get Paid For Extra Hour From Daylight Saving Time In The Fall?

By Glenn Hadley
Published on: 17:58 PST, Nov 5, 2016

When daylight saving time comes around, are shift workers paid for the extra hour in the fall season?

With the clocks falling back an hour Sunday (as they do in the United States around the same time each year), a number of different questions rise to the surface regarding the extra hour. Would you able to feel it? Will you wake up in the morning even more rested with an extra hour of sleep, or would your body even notice the change made by daylight saving time at all?

A vast number of people are fast asleep in their warm and comfortable beds at 2 a.m. in the early morning when daylight saving time makes its mark. That is the reason why people affected by the change are encouraged to change the times on their alarm clocks before they go to sleep, especially with devices that are not capable of updating automatically when daylight saving time comes around twice a year.

However, what about the people that are wide awake and working at 2 a.m.? Think about the growing number of third shift workers who get paid by the hour throughout the United States. When clocks fall back an hour (as they did early Sunday morning), what should have been 2 a.m. was flipped back to 1 a.m. as if someone reset the hour to start all over again. When you are counting down the hours to get home (especially during graveyard shifts), every hour counts.

Are shift workers paid for that extra hour given by daylight saving time in the fall season? Does that mean that a typical eight-hour workday transforms into a nine-hour workday – allowing shift workers to get paid for an extra hour while technically working the same late-night shift?

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) shined a specific spotlight on daylight saving time on the official website that outlines employment laws affecting workers and small businesses. According to the DOL, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) makes it clear that employees are to be paid according to their hours worked – whether that means gaining or losing an hour thanks to daylight saving time.

“On the Sunday that Daylight Saving Time ends at 2:00 A.M., the employee works the hour from 1:00 A.M. to 2:00 A.M. twice… All of the clocks are turned back to 1:00 A.M. Thus, on this day, the employee worked 9 hours even though the schedule only reflected 8 hours.”

The report further states that, according to the FLSA, “employees must be credited with all of the hours actually worked.”

Therefore, during the fall season when daylight saving time ends by turning clocks back an hour, third shift employees are capable of working a nine-hour workday. On the other hand, when daylight saving time starts in the spring by jumping forward an hour, those same employees would actually lose the hour – ending up with a seven-hour workday for working the same schedule.

[Featured Image by Karen Roach/Shutterstock]

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