National Employment Standards

The National Employment Standards (NES) are the minimum employment entitlements that have to be provided to all employees.
 

Maximum weekly hours

An employer must not request or require an employee to work more than the following hours of work in a week unless the additional hours are reasonable:

• for a full-time employee, 38 hours (unless their award) 

• for an employee other than a full-time employee, the lesser of 38 hours, the employee’s agreed ordinary hours of work in a week.

Flexible working arrangements

Some employees can request flexible working arrangements. Employees need to have worked for the same employer for at least 12 months.

Parental leave

Employees can access parental leave as a single continuous period, flexibly across their parental leave period, or a mixture of both.

Annual leave

All employees (except for casual employees) get paid annual leave.

Sick and carer's leave

Full-time and part-time employees can take paid sick leave if they can’t work because of a personal illness or injury.

Long service leave

Most employees' entitlement to long service leave comes from long service leave laws in each state or territory. 

public holiday

All employees have a right to be absent from work on a public holiday.

Notice and final pay

To end an employee’s employment, an employer has to give them written notice of their last day of employment.

Redundancy

A genuine redundancy is when the person’s job doesn't need to be done by anyone and the employer followed any consultation requirements in the award, enterprise agreement.

Information statements

Employers must give every new employee a copy of the Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS) before, or as soon as possible after, they start their new job and employers must also give every new casual employee a copy of the Casual Employment Information Statement (CEIS) at the same time.