779.343—Combinations of exemptions.
(a)
An employee may be engaged in a particular workweek in two or more types of activities for each of which a specific exemption is provided by the Act. The combined work of the employee during such a workweek may not satisfy the requirements of either exemption. It is not the intent of the Act, however, that an exemption based on the performance of one exempt activity should be defeated by the performance of another activity which has been made the basis of an equivalent exemption under another provision of the Act. Thus, where an employee during a particular workweek is exclusively engaged in performing two or more activities to which different exemptions are applicable, each of which activities considered separately would be an exempt activity under the applicable exemption if it were the sole activity of the employee for the whole workweek in question, as a matter of enforcement policy the employee will be considered exempt during such workweek. If the scope of such exemptions is not the same, the exemption applicable to the employee will be equivalent to that provided by whichever exemption provision is more limited in scope.
(b)
In the case of an establishment which sells both goods and services at retail and which qualifies as an exempt establishment under section 13(a)(2), but cannot, as a whole, meet the tests of section 13(a)(4) because it sells services as well as goods, a combination of section 13(a)(2) and 13(a)(4) exemptions may nevertheless be available for employees of the establishment who make or process, on the premises, goods which it sells. Such employees employed by an establishment which, as a whole, meets the tests set forth in section 13(a)(2), will be considered exempt under this combination exemption if the establishment, on the basis of all its activities other than sales of services, would meet the tests of section 13(a)(4).
(c)
Where two or more exemptions are applicable to an employee's work or employment during a workweek and where he may be exempt under a combination of exemptions stated above, the availability of a combination exemption will depend on whether the employee meets all the requirements of each exemption which it is sought to combine.