Casual employees

Entitlements and conditions

Rates of pay for casual employees covered by an award or agreement are prescribed in the applicable award or agreement. Usually these rates include a loading (currently 23% in most awards and agreements) to compensate for the fact that certain leave and other entitlements are not payable to casual employees.

Minimum hourly rates of pay for casual employees who are not covered by an award or agreement are prescribed by the Queensland Minimum Wage General Ruling made each year by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. These rates do not include a casual loading.

The Industrial Relations Act 1999 (PDF, 1.9MB) prescribes that casual employees are entitled to certain minimum leave entitlements.

A casual employee is not entitled to annual leave, sick leave or paid public holidays.
A casual employee is entitled to accrue a proportionate long service leave entitlement, calculated on their actual hours of service.
A long term casual employee is entitled to unpaid parental leave (i.e. maternity, 'paternity' or adoption leave), unpaid bereavement leave and unpaid carer's leave under the family leave provisions of the Act.

Casual employees covered by an award or agreement may also have additional leave entitlements prescribed in the applicable award or agreement.

In addition, some casual employees are subject to the dismissal provisions of the Act.

The Industrial Relations Amendment Act 2005 (PDF, 532kB), Section 9A, provides for working time and employment conditions for casual employees under an industrial instrument made after 1 September, 2005 unless the industrial instrument provides otherwise.

Long service leave

Casual employees are entitled to long service leave on the basis of 8.6667 weeks paid long service leave after 10 years continuous service. In certain circumstances they are entitled to be paid a pro rata entitlement on termination after 7 years employment.

The casual entitlement to long service leave is calculated as the number of hours for the complete period of employment worked/52 x 8.6667/10. Therefore a casual employee who worked 15,600 hours over a 10 year period would be entitled to 260 hours of long service leave.

Family leave

For the purposes of the family leave provisions available to casual employees the following definitions are applicable:

a long-term casual employee is defined as a casual employee who has been engaged by an employer on a regular and systematic basis for at least one year.
members of the immediate family are defined as the employee's spouse (including a former spouse, de-facto spouse and spouse of the same sex as the employee), and a child, ex-nuptial child, stepchild, adopted child, ex-foster child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of the employee or the employee's spouse.

Parental leave

Parental leave is leave for the:

birth of a child to a pregnant employee,
birth of a child to an employee's spouse, and
adoption of a child.

Long term casual employees are entitled to a maximum of 52 weeks unpaid parental leave.

Carer's leave

Carer's leave is leave for employees to care and support members of their immediate family or household when they are ill.

Long term casual employees are entitled to 10 days unpaid carer's leave in each year.

Bereavement leave

Bereavement leave is leave to assist employees when a member of their immediate family or household dies.

Long term casual employees are entitled to at least 2 days unpaid bereavement leave on each such death.

Dismissals

To ensure dismissal is lawful, employers should ensure they comply with the Industrial Relations Act 1999.

Short term casual employees are covered by the unfair dismissal provisions if they are dismissed for an invalid reason.
A short-term casual employee is a casual employee who has not been engaged on a regular and systematic basis, has not been engaged for several periods of employment of at least one year and does not have a reasonable expectation of further employment with the employer.
Long-term casual employees are subject to the dismissal provisions. In terminating a long-term casual employee, the employer must ensure the dismissal is considered fair under the Act. A dismissal is considered unfair if it is procedurally harsh, unjust or unreasonable or if it is for an invalid reason.
All casual employees, whether short-term or long-term, are excluded from the notice of dismissal requirements of the Act. This means employers can terminate the services of casual staff without notice.

Last updated:

Employment conditions