Executive Summary: On December 11, 2017, the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Aaron Fichtner (the “Commissioner”), ruled that the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Law’s (NJUCL) exemption for owner-operators not only applied to the case at bar, but also that satisfaction of the IRS test for independence is sufficient to demonstrate that the services performed by owner-operators were exempt from NJUCL coverage. The Commissioner’s decision clarified the applicability of the owner-operator exemption for motor carriers, rejected the argument that a formal IRS determination is needed to satisfy the exemption, and reversed hundreds of thousands of dollars of assessments rendered by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL).
Home > State Law Articles > New Jersey > General (NJ) > New Jersey Commissioner of Labor Clarifies the Owner-Operator Exemption under the State’s Unemployment Law