Alaska Child Labor Laws: Age, Hours, Permits, and Banned Jobs

Alaska’s child labor laws set a minimum working age of 14 for most jobs, cap hours for workers under 16, require a work permit or parental consent form for anyone under 17, and ban minors under 18 from a list of hazardous occupations. A separate quirk in the state’s wage law exempts minors under 18 who work 30 hours or fewer per week from Alaska’s minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave rules. The details below cover who can work, when, at what, and for how much.

How Old a Minor Must Be to Work

Children under 14 can only work in a short list of jobs under AS 23.10.335: domestic work, babysitting, and handiwork in or around private homes; newspaper delivery or sales; and casing cans in canneries under competent supervision.¹ Entertainment work is also open at any age with an approved permit. A child of any age can also work under the direct supervision of a parent in a business the parent owns and operates, or on a boat the parent owns and operates.² Outside those narrow categories, employment is off-limits.

At 14 and 15, a minor can work in retail, food service, and office jobs. These workers are still barred from manufacturing, mining, processing, construction, warehousing, transportation, and from operating any power-driven machinery.³

At 16, most occupational doors open. The commissioner of labor can also grant case-by-case exemptions allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to work in otherwise restricted roles when the duties are not unduly dangerous.⁴ The hazardous-occupation and adult-entertainment bans still apply up to age 18.

Work Permits and Parental Consent

Before a minor under 17 starts a job, the employer needs either written authorization from the commissioner of labor or has to use an alternative parental-consent process. The governing statute is AS 23.10.332.⁵

The standard route is a work permit issued with the commissioner’s written authorization. The alternative route is available only when the commissioner has already pre-approved the specific job for minors. In that case, the employer must file a written parental consent form, on a department-provided form, within seven calendar days of the minor’s first day. The consent has to name the exact job and its listed duties, be signed by a parent or legal guardian before the minor starts, and is valid only for the calendar year in which it was signed.⁵

A minor working under a parent’s direct supervision in the parent’s own business is exempt from this authorization step entirely.²

Hours, Days, and Breaks

For minors under 16, Alaska caps the combined total of school attendance and employment at nine hours in a single day. So on a six-hour school day, the maximum work shift is three hours. Work is allowed only between 5:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., and total employment outside school hours cannot exceed 23 hours in a week.⁶ Domestic work and babysitting fall outside these hour caps.

For 16- and 17-year-olds, Alaska sets no specific daily or weekly hour cap. The one state limit that applies to every minor under 18 is a maximum of six working days in any week.⁴

Federal rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act apply in parallel, and when both the federal and state rules cover the same worker, the stricter one controls.⁷ For 14- and 15-year-olds in particular, the federal cap of three hours on a school day and 18 hours in a school week may bind before Alaska’s does, depending on the schedule. The safer approach is to check both.

The 30-Minute Break

Every minor under 18 is entitled to a 30-minute unpaid break after five consecutive hours of work, regardless of the type of job.⁴ If the employer fails to give the break, the missed time becomes a minimum wage liability the minor can collect as a wage claim.

Minimum Wage and the Part-Time Exemption

Alaska’s minimum wage, set by Ballot Measure 1 (2024), rose to $13.00 on July 1, 2025, and goes to $14.00 on July 1, 2026, with further scheduled increases and annual inflation adjustments after that.⁸

The exemption that catches most families off guard: a minor under 18 who works 30 hours or fewer in a week is exempt from Alaska’s minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave requirements.⁹ For a part-time teen, the state wage floor simply does not apply. The federal minimum of $7.25 per hour still applies to employers covered by the FLSA, but that is well below Alaska’s rate.

Once a minor works more than 30 hours in a given week, the full state minimum wage applies for that week, along with overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a week or over 8 in a day.¹⁰ Alaska does not recognize the federal youth training wage of $4.25 per hour for workers under 20 in their first 90 days.

Jobs Minors Cannot Hold

Anyone under 18 is barred from hazardous excavation, underground mining, hoisting operations in mines, and any occupation dangerous to life, limb, or health under AS 23.10.350.⁴ The Department of Labor fills out that last category by regulation, prohibiting minors under 18 from working with explosives, radioactive substances, power-driven hoisting equipment, and power-driven metal-forming machines, as well as in slaughtering, meatpacking, wrecking, demolition, and ship-breaking.³

No minor under 18 can work at a business that offers adult entertainment, in any role, performing or not.⁴

For 14- and 15-year-olds, the barred list goes further and includes manufacturing, mining, processing, construction, warehousing, transportation, and operating any power-driven machinery.³

Industry Carve-Outs

Fishing and Seafood Processing

Federal law bars anyone under 16 from working on or around vessels engaged in net fishing. Alaska state law separately bars those under 16 from work in canneries and seafood plants, including cutting, slicing, butchering, and operating floating processing plants.¹¹ At 16, shore-based processing work opens up, though the hazardous-occupation rules still apply up to 18. The parental exemption lets a minor of any age work on a boat owned and operated by a parent.

Agriculture

Federal rules form the baseline. On a parent’s farm, children of any age can do any work at any time. On other farms, children as young as 12 can do non-hazardous agricultural work with written parental consent, and 14- and 15-year-olds can do non-hazardous farm work without consent.¹² Alaska’s own age and hour restrictions still layer on top, and the stricter standard governs.

Entertainment

A minor of any age can perform in film, television, radio, theater, or advertisements if the employer obtains an approved work permit from the Alaska Wage and Hour Administration. The usual limits on work times, hours, and days do not apply to entertainment performers.² The adult-entertainment bar still applies.

Enforcement and Reporting

The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development enforces the state’s child labor statutes at AS 23.10.325 through 23.10.370, conducting inspections and investigating complaints.¹³ Missed breaks for minors create an automatic minimum wage liability enforceable as a wage claim.⁴ The U.S. Department of Labor can impose civil money penalties for FLSA child labor violations in parallel, and when a state and federal case overlap, the stricter penalties apply.⁷

Complaints can be sent to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Commissioner’s office, at Commissioner.Labor@alaska.gov, or by mail to P.O. Box 111149, Juneau, AK 99811-1149.

1
FindLaw. Alaska Code 23.10.335 – Employment of Children Under 14
2
Justia. Alaska Code 23.10.330 – Exempted Employment
3
Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Summary of Alaska Child Labor Law
4
Justia. Alaska Code 23.10.350 – Employment of Person Under 18
5
Justia. Alaska Code 23.10.332 – Authorization for Children Under 17 to Work
6
Justia. Alaska Code 23.10.340 – Employment of Children Under 16
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #43: Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act for Nonagricultural Occupations
8
Alaska Division of Elections. Ballot Measure No. 1
9
Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Summary of Alaska Wage and Hour Act
10
Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Minimum Wage Standard and Overtime Hours
11
Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Child Labor Laws in Net Fishing
12
U.S. Department of Labor. Child Labor Rules Advisor – Exemptions from Child Labor Rules in Agriculture
13
Justia. Alaska Code 23.10.325 – Purpose