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Annual Leave For Casual Workers In Australia
Annual leave is a period of time that employees are allowed to take off work, usually around the holidays. It’s typically a set number of days or weeks that are given to employees, and they’re usually paid for this time off. The exceptions to this are for salaried employees who aren’t paid hourly, and while some employers do pay a salary for these individuals while they’re gone on vacation, it’s not required by law.
In Australia casual employees don’t receive any paid leave time off from their employer, however, they still have the same rights as other workers in this regard. For example, casual employees are allowed one day for every ten days they work. If the employee only works on some of those days then this time is pro-rated accordingly. Casual employees aren’t allowed to carry over any annual leave that they have left at the end of the year into future years. They also don’t receive payment for their annual leave days when they take them, and it’s instead taken out of the employees’ hourly rate.
If a casual employee has worked for their employer for more than twelve months straight then they will start qualifying for annual leave at the rate of four weeks per year. The maximum amount an employee can accrue is eight weeks, and this includes any pre-existing annual leave that the employee had earned before this twelve-month period. Casual employees are also allowed to carry over their accrued but unused annual leave between different years provided they aren’t already maxed out at eight weeks.
Also, since casual employment isn’t usually intended to be a permanent thing there are no regulations regarding pay for casuals during periods of leave. This is because casual employment isn’t really meant to be a permanent thing. For example, a casual employee might only work during the summer months when there’s no school. In this case, they would still accrue four weeks of annual leave for casual workers each year but wouldn’t necessarily take it as this would interfere with their education. Another instance where this might occur is if the person works at a store filling in so that another employee can go on maternity leave.