Child Labor – Prohibited Occupations

• Working in occupations involving explosives or radioactive materials
• Manufacturing brick, tile and like products
• Logging or sawmilling
• Slaughtering, meat packing, processing or rendering of meat
• Mining occupations
• Working on any scaffolding, roofs or ladders above six feet
• Operating power-driven bakery, metal-forming, woodworking, paper product or hoisting machines
• Wrecking, demolition or excavation
• Operating power-driven meat and vegetable slicing machines
• Operating motor vehicles as drivers or delivery drivers, and serving as outside helpers
• Operating circular saws, band saws and guillotine shears
• **Working with electrical apparatus and wiring
• **Working with compressed gases: minors are not allowed to dispense, transport, service, modify, or alter tanks, cylinders, or other equipment used for storing any inert or compound gas, including air, which has been compressed to a pressure that exceeds 40 pounds per square inch (p.s.i.), except that minors who are sixteen (16) years of age or older may fill balloons, and bicycle or car tires (but not truck or heavy equipment), if given proper instruction and the tank or cylinder containing the compressed gas is fixed and secure
• **Working in occupations involving toxic substances or corrosives, including pesticides or herbicides, unless proper field entry time allowances have been followed.
• **Firefighting
• **Operating or assisting to operate tractors over 20 PTO horsepower, forklifts, earthmoving equipment, and harvesting, planting, or plowing machinery or any moving machinery (**) annotates Florida law only

• Operating or assisting to operate power-driven machinery, including all power mowers and cutters
• Maintaining or repairing an establishment, machinery or equipment
• Working in freezers or meat coolers
• Operating power driven meat or vegetable slicing machines
• Operating motor vehicles, except for scooters, and in some cases, farm tractors
• Manufacturing, mining, or processing occupations, including occupations requiring duties to be performed in workrooms or workplaces where goods are manufactured, mined or processed
• Cooking (some exceptions apply) and baking, to include bakery machinery
• Working in all occupations in transportation, warehousing and storage, communications, construction (except clerical), boiler or engine rooms
• Loading and unloading trucks, railroad cars or conveyors
• Working for public messenger services
• Occupations which involve operating, setting up, adjusting, cleaning, oiling, or repairing power-driven food slicing machines and grinders, food choppers and cutters, and bakery-type mixers
• **Handling certain dangerous animals
• **Spray painting
• **Conducting door-to-door sales, except for some non-profit organizations such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, and under close supervision by an adult (**)Annotates Florida Law Only

No employee under 17 years of age may drive on public roadways as part of his or her job if that employment is subject to the FLSA.

Federal law prohibits driving as an occupation for minors under age 17. Seventeen-year-olds may engage in “incidental and occasional” driving which is interpreted as a maximum of one third of the work time in any work day and no more than 20 percent of the work time in any work week. Delivery jobs and service calls that require driving to customers’ homes are prohibited. Driving is the leading cause of occupational injury and death for workers of all ages. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of occupational deaths among 16 and 17-year-old workers. Motorized equipment (such as forklifts, loaders, and road-pavers) is another leading cause of work-related injury death for 16- and 17-year-olds according to NIOSH. Minors under the age of 18 are prohibited from operating these machines.

The above requirements apply whether the youth is driving a personal or employer-owned vehicle. Employers can guard against unwitting violations of the requirements by securing documentation from 17-year-old employees who drive as part of their job. Such documentation would include evidence of the employee’s age, completion of a driver education course, clean driving record and appropriate State driver’s license.