• Maryland child labor laws protect from the exploitation of young people.child vendor image by Living Legend from Fotolia.com
  
  Child labor laws in the state of Maryland are highly restrictive, but they are not exceptionally different from most states. Restrictions on hours, types of employment and safety are common features of child labor laws throughout the U.S., and there is the normal exception for children in the entertainment industry, who need special permits. In general, most of the child labor statutes are commonsense restrictions on the exploitation of young people.
  
  

Permits

• No teen (under 18 years) can receive a work permit from the Maryland Department of Labor, unless he has been offered a job. No child under 14 can be employed at all, unless it is in the entertainment or modeling industry.
  
  

Hours 14 to 15

• Youngsters of 14 or 15 years of age cannot work more than four hours on a school day and no more than eight hours on a nonschool day. In any given school week, no more than 23 hours are to be worked and no more than 40 hours in a nonschool week. No minor at all can work between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m., except in the summer, where the restricted hours are from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. In any five-hour period of work, for all young people from 14 to 17, there must be a 30-minute period of nonwork.
  
  

Hours 16 to 17

• For young people of either 16 or 17 years, there can be no more than 12 hours of combined school and outside work on a given day. For each school day, people of this age group must have a period of at least eight hours of nonschool and nonwork time.
  
  

Prohibited Jobs

• Prohibited occupations for anyone under 18 in Maryland include sawmills, mining, roofing, excavations, oil and petroleum, power tools, explosives, railroads, piloting, blast furnace work, and electrical wiring. Anything else is at the discretion of the Secretary of Labor.
  
  

Exceptions

• So long as the work is outside of the school day, these laws do not include domestic chores or work done in the family business. They also do not apply to caddying on a golf course, delivering newspapers, volunteer work or boating instruction (sailboats only). In addition, work-study programs sanctioned by a school are not counted as "hours worked," according to Maryland law.