Related Policies
Hiring minors
Some departments may wish to hire high school students in temporary positions during the summer or hire University student workers who are under the age of 18.
Human Resources must approve any hiring of minors. Human Resources will review your needs and make sure your job assignments are appropriate, given child labor laws.
The Fair Labor Standards Act’s child labor provisions are designed to protect minors by restricting the types of jobs and the number of hours they may work.
Hours limitations
The following limitations apply for the hours minors can work.
- Employees 18 or older may perform any job, whether hazardous or not, for unlimited hours, in accordance with minimum wage and overtime requirements.
- Youths 16 and 17 years old may perform any non-hazardous job, for unlimited hours.
- Youths 14 and 15 years old may work outside school hours in various non-manufacturing, non-mining, non-hazardous jobs up to:
- 3 hours on a school day
- 18 hours in a school week
- 8 hours on a non-school day
- 40 hours on a non-school week
Work must be performed between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., except from June 1 through Labor Day, when evening hours are extended to 9 p.m.
Prohibited jobs
Under 19 years old
Under 18 years old Accordion Closed
ARS §23-231
A person shall not employ or allow a person under the age of 18 years to work in, about or in connection with:
- An establishment manufacturing or storing explosives, except a retail establishment if the employment does not include any handling of explosives other than prepackaged small arms ammunition. In this paragraph “small arms ammunition” means ammunition not exceeding .60 caliber in size, shotgun shells or blasting caps.
- Occupations as a motor vehicle driver or outside helper, except for driving incidental to employment if the person has a valid license for operation of the vehicle and either:
- The total driving time does not exceed two hours per day or twenty-five per cent of the work period per day.
- The total mileage driven is fewer than fifty miles per day.
- Mine or quarry occupations.
- Logging occupations.
Occupations are prohibited that involve:
- The operation, setup, repair, adjustment, oiling or cleaning of a power-driven woodworking machine.
- Exposure to radioactive substances and to radiation in excess of 0.5 rem per year.
- The operation or assistance in the operation of a power-driven hoist with a capacity exceeding one ton or an elevator, except operation of an automatic elevator incidental to employment.
- The operation of a power-driven metalworking, forming, punching or shearing machine.
- Slaughtering, meat packing, processing or rendering of meat or the operation, setup, repair, adjustment, oiling or cleaning of a power-driven meat processing machine.
- The operation of a power-driven bakery machine.
- The operation of a power-driven paper products machine.
- The manufacture of clay construction products or silica refractory products.
- The operation of a power-driven saw.
- Wrecking, demolition and ship-breaking operations.
- Roofing operations or equipment attached to or placed on roofs.
- Occupations in excavation or tunnel operations, except manual excavation, backfilling or working in trenches or other penetrations of the ground surface that do not exceed two feet in depth at any point.
The industrial commission may by regulation declare other occupations to be dangerous to lives or limbs or injurious to the health and morals of persons under the age of eighteen years and prohibit the employment or allowance to work in, about or in connection with the occupations by such persons unless a variance is granted.
Under 16 years old Accordion Closed
ARS §23-232
A person shall not employ or allow a person under the age of sixteen years to work in, about or in connection with:
- manufacturing
- processing
- laundering or dry cleaning in a commercial laundry
- warehousing
- construction
- boiler, furnace or engine rooms
- occupations, including window washing, involving work from a ladder, scaffold, windowsill or similar structure or place more than five feet in height
Any of the following activities in a retail food or gasoline service establishment:
- Maintenance or repair of machines or equipment of the establishment, except work in connection with cars and trucks if confined to dispensing gasoline and oil, courtesy service, car cleaning, washing and polishing but not including work involving the inflation of any tire mounted on a rim equipped with a removable retaining ring.
- Cooking and baking, except at soda fountains, lunch counters, snack bars or cafeteria serving counters.
- Setting up, adjusting, cleaning, oiling or repairing power-driven food slicers, grinders, choppers and cutters.
- All work in preparation of meats for sale, except wrapping, sealing, labeling, weighing, pricing and stocking.
Any of the following activities in agriculture:
- Operating a tractor over twenty power take off horsepower that is not equipped with a rollover protective structure and seatbelts.
- Connecting or disconnecting an implement or any of its parts to or from a tractor over twenty power take off horsepower.
- Operating a corn picker, cotton picker, grain combine, hay mower, forage harvester, hay baler, potato harvester, mobile pea viner, feed grinder, crop dryer, forage blower, auger conveyor or self-unloading wagon, power post hole digger, power-driven nonwalking rotary type tiller, trencher or earthmoving equipment or potato combine. In this subdivision “operating” means starting, stopping, adjusting, feeding or any other activity regarding physical conduct associated with such machines and machinery.
- Working in a pen occupied by a bull, boar or stud horse maintained for breeding purposes, a sow with young pigs or a cow with a newborn calf.
- Felling, bucking, skidding or unloading timber with butt more than six inches in diameter.
- Picking or pruning from a ladder over eight feet in height.
- Riding on a tractor as a helper or driving a bus, truck or automobile.
- Working inside a fruit storage area or grain storage area designed to retain an oxygen deficient or toxic atmosphere, an upright silo within two weeks after silage has been added, a manure pit or operating a tractor for packing purposes in a horizontal silo.
- Handling hazardous agricultural chemicals.
- Handling explosives.
- Transporting, transferring or applying anhydrous ammonia.
The industrial commission may by regulation declare any other occupation to be dangerous to lives or limbs or injurious to the health and morals of persons under sixteen years of age and prohibit the employment or allowance to work in, about or in connection with the occupations by such persons unless a variance is granted.
Restricted hours
Employment of persons under the age of 16 shall be confined to the following hours:
When school is not in session:
- Not more than 40 hours in any one week or more than 8 hours in any one day
When school is in session:
- Not more than 18 hours in any one week or more than 3 hours in any one day.
A person shall not employ persons under the age of 16 at night nor shall they be employed in solicitation sales or deliveries on a door-to-door basis between 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on days preceding a day when school is in session and between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on days preceding a day when school is not in session.
The provisions of this section do not apply to persons who deliver newspapers to a consumer.
For the purpose of this section, “night” means:
- On a day preceding a day when school is in session, those hours beginning at 9:30 p.m. and continuing until 6:00 a.m. on the succeeding day.
- On a day preceding a day when school is not in session, those hours beginning at 11:00 p.m. and continuing until 6:00 a.m. on the succeeding day.