Summer Hiring Alert: Child Labor Law Updates Across Four States

Quick Hits

• Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York have each updated their child labor laws, with effective dates ranging from December 2025 through May 2027.
• The updates affect hazardous-occupation restrictions, recordkeeping, registration requirements, hours of work, and the process for issuing employment certificates to minors under the age of eighteen.

Colorado

Colorado adopted new regulations that took effect on February 1, 2026, implementing the Colorado Youth Employment Opportunity Act (CYEOA), which regulates the employment of minors under the age of eighteen. The regulations clarify restrictions under the CYEOA that prohibit individuals under the age of eighteen from certain hazardous jobs, exemptions, and restrictions on jobs involving the use of certain “power-driven” machines. The regulations further clarify that minors are prohibited from certain jobs, including jobs in liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries, tobacco and nicotine stores, and casinos. The regulations also expand employers’ recordkeeping obligations, requiring employers to keep certain documents related to a minor’s eligibility for employment for three years after the minor’s eighteenth birthday or three years after the termination of employment, whichever is sooner.

Indiana

House Bill (H.B.) 1302 will repeal provisions of the state’s child labor law that required employers that employ at least five minors between the ages of fourteen and seventeen to register certain information with the Indiana Department of Labor. H.B. 1302 takes effect July 1, 2026. The changes come after Indiana, in 2025, expanded the hours that minors can work, allowing sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to work the same hours and days as adults and allowing fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds to work until 9:00 p.m. on any day during the summer (from June 1 to Labor Day).

New Jersey

Senate Bill (S) 4400 amends New Jersey’s child labor laws to add an exemption from the restriction on the number of hours minors may work for minors age fourteen or older who are professional athletes. The change took effect on December 19, 2025. New Jersey restricts the number of hours minors aged fourteen and fifteen may work during school weeks and school days, allowing up to eighteen nonschool hours in any school week and up to eight hours on any nonschool day and up to three nonschool hours on school days. Minors aged thirteen and younger are generally prohibited from work except in certain agricultural jobs, newspaper delivery, and shoe shining.

New York

Under changes made by New York Senate Bill (SB) 3006 that take effect on May 9, 2027, the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), rather than school officials, will issue employment certificates electronically via the state’s new child labor database. Prospective minor employees will need to apply for the certificates using a form prescribed by NYSDOL. SB 3006, which largely took effect in May 2025, revamped the certification process for employing minors, establishing the child labor database and requiring.

Key Takeaways

The updates in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York are among the latest changes to state child labor laws in recent years, as many state have sought to refine their restrictions on hiring minors to adapt to labor-market changes. Employers looking to hire minors this year may want to review job duties against updated hazardous-occupation lists, confirm recordkeeping practices meet the longest applicable retention period, register with state child labor databases where required, and monitor effective dates to ensure timely compliance.

Ogletree Deakins will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the Multistate Compliance, State Developments, Wage and Hour, Workplace Safety and Health, Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York blogs as additional information becomes available.

The Ogletree Deakins Client Portal contains additional information and tracks developments on child labor laws. (Full law summaries are available for Premium and Advanced subscribers. Snapshots and Updates are available for all registered clients.) For more information on the Client Portal or a Client Portal subscription, please reach out to clientportal@ogletree.com.

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