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The U.S. Department of Labor is growing its ranks, a move that legal experts predict will set the stage for the agency to crack down on misclassified workers, employers failing to compensate employees for work they do off the clock, and other wage and hour violations that deepened during the pandemic.

Employers may have time to prepare: While the agency announced on Feb. 1 plans to add 100 investigators to its Wage and Hour Division to boost enforcement, it's made no headway on growing the staff yet.