Who doesn't get redundancy pay?
Some employees don’t get redundancy payments when their job is made redundant.
On this page:
- Employees who don't get redundancy pay
- Employees of small businesses
- Tools and resources
- Related information
Employees who don't get redundancy pay
The following employees don’t get redundancy pay:
- employees whose period of continuous service with the employer is less than 12 months
- employees employed for:
- a stated period of time
- an identified task or project
- a particular season
- employees terminated because of serious misconduct
- casual employees
- trainees engaged only for the length of the training agreement
- apprentices.
There are special arrangements for employees whose employment transfers when the business they work for is sold. Find out more on our When businesses change owners page.
Employees of small businesses
A small business is one that employs less than 15 employees. Some small businesses don’t have to pay redundancy pay when making an employee redundant.
To check if small businesses need to pay redundancy pay, select your industry in Redundancy pay and entitlements.
To figure out whether the business is a small business, count all employees employed at the time of the dismissal including:
- the employee and any other employees being terminated at that time
- regular and systematic casual employees employed by the business at the time of the redundancy (not all casual employees)
- employees of associated entities, including those based overseas.
The time of dismissal is when an employer provides an employee with their notice of termination. It doesn't matter if an employee works out their notice period or not.
Source reference: Fair Work Act 2009 s.23, 121 and 123
Tools and resources
- Notice and Redundancy Calculator
- Consultation and cooperation in the workplace best practice guide
- Redundancy payments - Australian Tax Office