Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The results are in: attorneys are filing more employment law cases in court.  Indeed, year-end reporting from legal databases like LexMachina confirm that the pace of filing new employment discrimination cases reached its highest level in 2025, surpassing 20,000 new filings nationwide.  Though overtime and minimum wage lawsuits under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) have continued to decline since 2015, discrimination cases under laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act are on the rise.

On February 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division proposed a new rule to determine whether workers are independent contractors or employees under federal wage-and-hour laws.

Every January, new California employment laws take effect and 2026 is no different, bringing changes to employment contracts, pay data reporting, paid family leave, and other employment-related topics. The following list highlights five new California employment laws for employers to be aware of in the year ahead.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a significant ruling for employers facing Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) collective actions.