Payroll & Finance
Minimum sick leave entitlement to increase to 10 days
June 1, 2021
The Government has passed the Holidays (Increasing Sick Leave) Amendment Bill to increase the minimum employee sick leave entitlement from 5 days to 10 days per year.
From 24 July 2021 employees will be entitled to 10 days sick leave per year when they have worked for their employer for six months or more. Currently employees are entitled to 5 days sick leave per year.
After the change takes effect on 24 July, employees will become eligible for the extra sick leave at different times over the next year. Either after reaching 6 months’ employment or on their sick leave entitlement anniversary (12 months after they were last entitled to sick leave).
The Government has already announced further upcoming changes to the Holidays Act, including making sick leave available to employees from their first day of employment.
Employees who already get 10 or more sick days a year are not affected by this change.
The maximum amount of unused sick leave that an employee can be entitled to will remain 20 days.
What will you need to do?
If you’re using our PayHero payroll system you won’t need to do anything. We’ll update PayHero behind the scenes so that your employees continue to receive the right sick leave entitlement automatically.
