Part-time employee entitlements and what your business must provide

If you employ part-time staff, the law requires more of you than paying for the hours they work. Under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), every part-time employee must receive the same minimum safety net as your full-time employees, calculated pro-rata on their ordinary hours, plus anything extra their modern award or enterprise agreement adds. The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) enforces these obligations, and the maximum penalties for non-compliance were increased substantially in 2024.

This guide sets out the obligations that apply to part-time arrangements: who counts as part-time and where the thresholds sit, the pay and leave you must provide, what you owe when employment ends, the records you must keep, and the consequences of getting it wrong.

Who the obligations apply to, and what counts as part-time

The National Employment Standards (NES) apply to national system employers, which covers essentially every private sector business in Australia that employs staff. The Fair Work Ombudsman describes a part-time employee as someone who works less than 38 hours a week, usually on regular hours each week, and is employed on an ongoing or fixed-term basis. Unlike a casual, a part-timer is a permanent employee with agreed, predictable hours who accrues paid leave.

Run three checks when classifying a worker:

• Hours: fewer than 38 per week, the full-time benchmark.
• Pattern: an agreed, ongoing pattern of shifts or days, not ad hoc offers of work.
• Entitlements: the same NES minimums as full-time employees, on a pro-rata basis.

A casual is different. A casual employee has no firm advance commitment to ongoing work and receives a casual loading, or a higher casual rate, instead of paid leave. Since 26 August 2024 the Fair Work Act has defined casual employment by reference to the real substance of the arrangement, and casuals who believe they no longer meet that definition can give written notice to convert to permanent employment under what the FWO calls the employee choice pathway. Once a casual has been employed for six months, or 12 months at a small business, the employer must consult with them and respond in writing within 21 days, and can refuse the change only on specified grounds. Disputes go to the Fair Work Commission.

The threshold that changes your obligations is the small business test. Under s 23 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), a small business employer employs fewer than 15 employees, counting regular casuals and treating associated entities as one employer. Crossing that line affects redundancy pay, the unfair dismissal minimum employment period, and how long a casual must wait before using the employee choice pathway.

Modern awards and enterprise agreements overlay extra rules on the NES, including minimum engagement periods, how agreed hours can be varied, and when overtime starts for part-timers. Always check the award that covers your workplace before relying on the NES alone.

Pay the correct rate

Most employees are covered by a modern award, and you must pay at least the award rate for the correct classification. Where no award applies, the national minimum wage sets the floor. From 1 July 2025 the national minimum wage is $24.95 per hour, or $948 for a 38-hour week, following the Fair Work Commission's 2025 Annual Wage Review.

Penalty rates, overtime, loadings and allowances apply only if the award or enterprise agreement provides them. Many awards set a minimum engagement for part-timers, commonly three hours per shift, and overtime can start once a part-timer works beyond their agreed ordinary hours. These details vary by award, so the rates in your payroll system should be checked against the current award instrument, not assumptions from a previous role or industry.

Annual leave

Under s 87 of the Fair Work Act, an employee gets four weeks of paid annual leave for each year of service, or five weeks if their award defines them as a shiftworker. The leave accrues progressively during the year, and for part-timers it accrues in proportion to their ordinary hours. A full-time employee on 38 hours a week accrues 152 hours over a year, so a part-timer working 19 hours a week accrues 76 hours. Accruals are best tracked in hours so the proportion is easy to see and to audit.

The NES does not require annual leave loading. If your award or enterprise agreement provides it, part-time employees get it on the same pro-rata basis as their leave. Untaken annual leave must be paid out when employment ends.

Personal and carer's leave

Under s 96 of the Fair Work Act, an employee gets 10 days of paid personal and carer's leave each year, accruing progressively according to their ordinary hours of work and accumulating from year to year. The leave can be used for personal illness or injury, or to care for an immediate family or household member.

Because accrual follows ordinary hours, a part-timer working 19 hours a week accrues 38 hours of personal and carer's leave in a year, exactly half of the 76 hours a full-time employee on 38 hours accrues. The leave cannot be cashed out unless the award or agreement allows it, and even then the employee must keep at least 15 days of accrued leave.

Separately, the NES gives every employee, including part-timers, 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. That entitlement is not pro-rated; a part-timer gets the full 10 days.

Public holidays

Under s 114 of the Fair Work Act, an employee is entitled to be absent from work on a public holiday in the place where they are based. You may request that they work if the request is reasonable, and they may refuse if the request is unreasonable or their refusal is reasonable. The Act lists the factors a court considers, including the nature of the work, the employee's personal circumstances, whether they would receive penalty rates, and the notice given on either side.

If a public holiday falls on a day a part-timer would ordinarily work, you must pay them their base rate for those ordinary hours. If they do work, award penalty rates will usually apply.

Parental leave

Under ss 67 and 70 of the Fair Work Act, an employee who has completed 12 months of continuous service is entitled to 12 months of unpaid parental leave associated with the birth or adoption of a child. The leave can be extended by agreement for up to 12 months beyond the initial period. Part-time employees qualify on the same basis as full-time employees, and time served as a part-timer counts towards the 12 months.

Government Paid Parental Leave is a separate payment administered by Services Australia and is not an employer obligation.

Notice, redundancy and dismissal protections

Notice of termination works the same way for part-time and full-time employees. Under s 117 of the Fair Work Act, the minimum period is one week for service up to one year, two weeks for one to three years, three weeks for three to five years, and four weeks beyond five years, with an extra week if the employee is over 45 and has at least two years of service. The notice must be in writing. If you pay in lieu of notice, the payment is at the full rate for the hours the employee would have worked, so a part-timer is paid for their ordinary part-time hours, not a full week.

Redundancy pay under s 119 of the Fair Work Act is also scaled to the employee's ordinary hours. The amount is calculated at the base rate of pay for the employee's ordinary hours of work, using a table that starts at four weeks for between one and two years of service and rises to a maximum of 16 weeks. Because the calculation uses ordinary hours, part-timers are paid proportionately.

Under s 121 of the Fair Work Act, redundancy pay is not required if the employee has less than 12 months of continuous service, or if the employer is a small business employer. That exemption is a floor, not a ceiling: an enterprise agreement or employment contract can still require redundancy pay at a small business.

Two dismissal protections round this out. Unfair dismissal claims require a minimum employment period of six months, or 12 months for a small business employer, under s 383 of the Fair Work Act. And employees are protected from adverse action, including dismissal, for exercising a workplace right, such as asking about their entitlements.

Contracts, records and pay slips

The paperwork is where part-time compliance is won or lost. The employment contract should identify the role as part-time, set out the ordinary hours and pattern of work, state the rate and how entitlements are calculated, and reference the applicable award or enterprise agreement. Many awards require the agreed hours to be in writing and any variation to be agreed in writing, so keep signed variations with the original contract.

You must keep time-and-wages records covering hours worked, leave taken and accrued, and pay, and keep them for seven years. Pay slips must be issued each pay period with the details required by the Fair Work Regulations 2009 (Cth). Payroll systems should be configured for award classifications, penalty rates and minimum engagements, and audited when award rates change or rosters shift.

What happens if you get it wrong

Contraventions of the NES and of award and agreement terms are civil remedy provisions under s 539 of the Fair Work Act. The FWO investigates and can take employers to court, where orders can include penalties, back-pay and compensation, and underpayment claims can reach back six years.

The penalty figures matter. Following the 2024 reforms to the civil penalty regime, a company that is not a small business faces up to $469,500 per standard contravention and up to $4,695,000 for a serious contravention, with smaller maximums for incorporated small business employers and individuals. These figures are expressed in penalty units that are indexed each year, so they rise over time.

A compliance checklist for part-time arrangements

Work through these steps for each part-time employee:

• Classify correctly: confirm each worker is genuinely part-time, casual or full-time on the facts, and revisit the label when hours become regular.
• Document hours: set the pattern of ordinary hours in writing and keep signed variations.
• Pay accurately: spot-check award rates, penalty rates, overtime and minimum engagements.
• Accrue leave in hours: check annual leave and personal and carer's leave balances each pay cycle.
• Apply public holiday pay: pay base rate for ordinary hours on public holidays.
• Keep records: maintain time-and-wages records and pay slips for seven years.
• Plan terminations: work out the notice bracket, redundancy entitlement and untaken leave payout before the final day.

When to get legal advice

Classification questions, award interpretation, restructures and redundancies, and responding to an FWO investigation are all situations where a small error is expensive. An employment lawyer can assess whether a worker is casual or part-time on the current definition, check an award for the traps that apply to your industry, draft the contract and variation documents, and run the numbers on a termination before you commit to it.

Start with the written hours and the classification

The obligation employers most often miss is not the leave accrual maths. It is the classification and the documentation that sit underneath it. A person doing regular, predictable hours under a casual label is a live compliance risk under the employee choice pathway, and hours that were never written down cannot be proven in a dispute. This week, pull the rosters and the contracts, confirm who is part-time and who is casual on the actual pattern of work, and put the agreed hours in writing. That single pass will resolve most of the exposure this article covers.