Are meal break requirements determined by the total length of an employee’s shift, or by the number of hours actually worked?

Meal break requirements in California are determined by the number of hours an employee actually works each day. The length of the employee’s assigned shift may be longer than the number of hours actually worked in a few situations.

When calculating hours worked, we look at the total shift length and subtract out any unpaid meal periods or other time off. For example, Joe is scheduled to work from 8 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., which is 10 hours and 15 minutes. Because Joe is scheduled for more than 6 hours, he of course must take at least one 30-minute meal break. But since Joe’s shift is 10 hours and 15 minutes long, is he then entitled to a second meal break? The answer is no — Joe actually worked only 9 hours and 45 minutes because he took a 30-minute meal break.

The law looks to how many hours the employee actually worked, not the total number of hours of the assigned shift. It’s important to remember though that all required 10-minute rest breaks do count as time worked for calculating meal break requirements, even though employees are not working during their rest breaks.

Another situation that sometimes causes confusion is where an employee takes time off during the day, such as for a medical appointment, and uses paid leave time.

For example, Jane regularly works an 8-hour day from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and normally takes a half-hour lunch around noon. If Jane was planning to leave work at noon for a medical procedure and use sick leave for the rest of the day, she would not be entitled to a meal break because she would be working less than 5 hours. Although Jane would be paid 8 hours for the day (4 hours worked plus 4 hours of sick leave), she would not actually work enough hours to trigger the meal break requirement.

It’s important to note that there are exceptions to these general meal break requirements in certain industries, such as health care and construction, as well as under some collective bargaining agreements.

Read more about Meal Breaks in the HR Library.