How much annual leave do employees receive?
Your full-time employees receive 4 weeks of annual leave per year. Part-time employees get a pro rata amount of annual leave, which means a proportionate amount based on their hours of work. Casual employees don’t get paid annual leave.
Some of your employees may be entitled to extra leave. Employees who are seven day shiftworkers and who are regularly rostered to work Sundays and public holidays are entitled to an additional week of annual leave each year.
Best Practice Tip
Annual leave continues to accrue while employees are taking any form of paid leave. Find out how annual leave accumulates in the Calculating annual leave section.
Can I require an employee to take annual leave?
Under the Vehicle Award, you can require your employees to take their annual leave in the following situations:
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during a close down of your business or section(s) of your business, for the purpose of allowing annual leave to all or a majority of employees in the workplace, for example, if your business closes over Christmas and New Year
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when the employee has 8 weeks or more of accrued annual leave, and you have genuinely tried to reach agreement with the employee about the timing of taking the leave.
If you require an employee to take annual leave because they have 8 weeks or more of accrued leave, you can only require them to take up to a quarter of their accrued leave.
If you require an employee to take leave in either of these situations, you must give them no less than 4 weeks’ notice. Template letters for both of these scenarios are available from the Industry specific templates page, under the Vehicle Industry heading.
Can I require an employee to take unpaid leave?
You can require an employee to take unpaid leave if you require your employees to take leave during a close down period and the employee has not accrued enough annual leave to cover the period. The employee is still entitled to be paid for all public holidays during the close down period.
Can employees take leave in advance?
An employee can take annual leave before it has accrued if you agree. If their employment ends before they have accrued the leave, you can deduct the outstanding amount from their final pay.
Can my employees cash out their annual leave?
Your employees can’t cash out their annual or personal leave entitlements under the Vehicle Award. Your employees can either take their annual leave at an agreed time or have it paid out on termination.
How do public holidays affect annual leave?
The entitlement to paid public holidays is separate to annual leave. This means that if a public holiday falls during a period of annual leave your employee must be paid for the public holiday separately. This day must not be subtracted from the employee’s annual leave balance.
How does workers’ compensation affect annual leave?
Under the Fair Work Act 2009 and the National Employment Standards, an employee is usually not entitled to accrue or take annual leave when receiving workers’ compensation. However, employees may accrue or take annual leave during a period of workers’ compensation if it is allowed under an applicable Commonwealth, State or Territory law that is about workers’ compensation. You should contact the relevant workers’ compensation agency in your state or territory for more information - contact details are available below.