What Illinois Labor Laws Impact Your Businesses? (2021)

Illinois businesses are subject to state labor laws, as well as local laws, depending on where your business is located.

If you’re a business owner in Illinois, here are a few important requirements for minimum wage, overtime, and sick leave.

Illinois Minimum Wage

The minimum wage for most Illinois employees, age 18 or older, is currently set at $11.00.

For the Chicago metro area, the minimum hourly wage minimums are:

• Businesses with 4-20 employees - new minimum hourly wage: $14.00

• Businesses with 21 or more employees - new minimum hourly wage: $15.00

Employees over the age of 18, who do NOT receive tips, may be paid $10.50 for the first 90 days with the employer. Those under 18 years of age may be paid at the rate of $8.50 per hour for less than 650 hours worked for an employer in a calendar year. Once the employee works more than 650 hours with an employer in a calendar year, they must be paid $11.00 per hour.

Illinois Overtime Laws

Illinois labor laws require employers to pay overtime pay one and a half times an employee’s normal hourly rate, if an employee works over 40 hours in a workweek. Therefore, IIllinois’ overtime minimum wage is currently $16.50 per hour, one and a half times the regular Illinois minimum wage of $11.00 per hour.

By federal law, a covered, nonexempt employee is entitled to compensation for overtime. The federal overtime provisions contained in the FLSA require an employee receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek.

Illinois Sick Leave

Under the Illinois Employee Sick Leave Act, employers are required to allow employees to use at least a portion of the sick leave time that is already available to them, under certain existing employer policies, to care for certain relatives.

The Act requires employers to allow employees to use such time “for absences due to an illness, injury, or medical appointment of the employee’s child, spouse, domestic partner, sibling, parent, mother-in-law, father-in-law, grandchild, grandparent, or stepparent, for reasonable periods of time as the employee’s attendance may be necessary, on the same terms upon which the employee is able to use sick leave benefits for the employee’s own illness or injury.”

An employer may limit the use of sick time to care for a relative as described in the Act “to an amount not less than the personal sick leave that would be accrued during 6 months at the employee’s then current rate of entitlement.” Employers may allow more than that amount of time if they so choose.

Start or Grow a Business in Illinois

If you’re starting a business in Illinois, or trying to scale your operations, make sure you have a strategy for attracting new hires, managing back-office administrative tasks, and keeping compliant with state labor laws and regulations. It pays to offer competitive employee benefits packages, run payroll with flexible payroll software, and take care of business due diligence with necessary compliance support for your employer-related needs.

Learn how Justworks helps small businesses run with confidence.