New Jersey Dramatically Expands State Family Leave Act and Employee Leave Protections

On January 17, 2026, outgoing Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation (A3451/S2950), which will expand dramatically the scope and application of the New Jersey Family Leave Act (NJFLA). More employers will be subject to the law, and more employees will qualify for job-protected leave. These changes are effective July 17, 2026. 

In addition to these changes, the amendments address the receipt of Temporary Disability Benefits (TDB) and Family Leave Insurance (FLI) and may provide job protected leave for those who receive these benefits, although questions remain on this point and further guidance is expected. 

Current Law

The NJFLA provides qualifying New Jersey employees with 12 weeks of job-protected leave during a 24-month period. The eligibility for leave is triggered by certain qualifying events. Under the law’s current iteration, to qualify for leave, an employee must work for a covered employer for at least 12 months and have worked at least 1,000 hours in the preceding 12 months for that employer. Employers are covered if they employ at least 30 employees for 20 workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. 

Out-of-state employers are covered if they meet this 30-employee threshold and employ at least one employee working in New Jersey. 

Qualifying employees of covered employers are eligible for NJFLA leave: (1) to care for or bond with a child within one year of the child’s birth, placement for adoption, or foster care; (2) to care for a family member with a serious health condition or who has been isolated or quarantined because of exposure to a communicable disease during a state of emergency; or (3) to provide care for a child if the child’s school or place of care is closed by order of a public official due to an epidemic of a communicable disease or other public health emergency. 

Notably, unlike its federal corollary, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the NJFLA does not provide leave for an employee’s own disabling health condition. Under current state law, employees requesting job protected leave because they themselves are unable to work for medical reasons generally must seek leave under the FMLA or as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD).

NJFLA leave may be taken intermittently or consecutively. Although NJFLA leave is unpaid, employees may apply for FLI and receive partial wage replacement. 

The NJFLA Changes

Under the amendments, the NJFLA will continue to provide 12 weeks of job-protected leave during a 24-month period, and the qualifying purposes for the leave remain unchanged. However, effective July 17, 2026, the definitions for qualifying employees and covered employers will change significantly and, as a result, the law potentially will apply far more broadly than it does now. The former Governor’s press release estimates that an additional 400,000 New Jersey employees will now be eligible to receive NJFLA protection. Rather than having to meet the 12-month/1,000-hour requirements currently in place, under the amendments, employees will instead be eligible for NJFLA leave if they are employed by a covered employer for at least three months and have worked at least 250 hours for that covered employer in the last 12 months. Thus, many part-time workers, recent hires, and even probationary employees will be entitled to job-protected leave.

The amendments also expand coverage of smaller employers. A “covered employer” will include those with at least 15 employees, employed during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year.

The twin expansions of who may take leave and who must grant it mean that the NJFLA changes will impact employers of almost all sizes, across the entire State.

Additional Changes

The new legislation also amends the law governing receipt of TDB and FLI, although the scope and impact of these changes are not as clearly described in the legislation. To review, an employee may qualify for TDB if the employee is unable to work for medical reasons and may qualify for FLI if the employee is needed to care for a family member or for other specified family-related reasons. As currently written, these laws provide partial wage replacement but do not require employers to provide job-protected leave during receipt of those benefits. Under current law, an employee’s leave rights are found elsewhere, for example, in the NJFLA, FMLA, ADA, or NJLAD.

This may change, too. The amendments to the TDB and FLI laws provide that an employee receiving those benefits, upon return from leave, will be “entitled to be restored by the employer to the position held by the employee when the leave commenced or to an equivalent position of like seniority, status, employment benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment.” This is unquestionably broad language and potentially extends job-protected leave rights to all employees who receive TDB or FLI payments.

If this is the intent of the law, the ranks of employees eligible for job-protected leave have been greatly expanded—far beyond the NJFLA changes themselves. And, because of the broad coverage of the TBI and FLI laws, this change would affect virtually all employers with employees working in New Jersey. The impact of such a change would be remarkably far-reaching. An employee may receive up to 26 weeks of TDB payments; the amendments, thus, could provide job-protected leave for this entire period, more than double the 12 weeks the FMLA provides. In the unusual situation where an employee would be eligible for TDB and then later for FLI (or vice versa), this period could extend even further.

But this language appears to contradict limiting language elsewhere, which advises that nothing in the amendments should be construed as “increasing, reducing, or otherwise modifying any [NJFLA] entitlement” to be restored to employment after a period of leave. It is difficult to square this point with the broader statement seemingly entitling employees to be restored to their former positions after a leave in which they receive TDB or FLI. Given the lack of clarity on how these provisions interact, the New Jersey employer community is hopeful that the state’s new Administration will issue formal or informal guidance in the coming months and before the changes’ July effective date.

Finally, the amendments also will grant employees the option of using New Jersey Earned Sick Leave (NJESL) or receiving TDB or FLI benefits, and employees may choose the order in which they use these benefits—with explicit allowance for and increasing likelihood that these benefits will be “stacked.” And, employees “shall not receive more than one kind of paid leave simultaneously during any period of time.”  This provision may bar employees from supplementing TDB or FLI benefits with available paid leave (whether NJESL or employer provided PTO) to remain whole during time off.  

Conclusion/Next Steps

While the recent amendments plainly will expand significantly the number of employees eligible for NJFLA job-protected leave, and the number of employers who are subject to the law, the precise contours of the TDB/FLI changes as well as employees’ control over the use of NJESL, TDB, and FLI remain far less clear. While further guidance is anticipated, at this point, all New Jersey employers—including those with only a single employee in the State—should review their leave and PTO practices and policies and begin to take steps to bring those policies and practices into compliance with the coming changes.

The lawyers in Ballard Spahr’s Labor and Employment Group and Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Group advise employers in New Jersey and nationally on leave and benefits law, including the NJFLA, NJLAD, NJESL, ADA, and FMLA.

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