“Service” and “continuous service” are words used in awards and the Fair Work Act to describe the period an employee has worked for an employer. Both terms are counted in different ways for different entitlements. Some absences don’t count as service. These absences are excluded periods.
Service
An employee’s period of service is the length of time they’ve worked for an employer, excluding some types of absence. Sometimes, a period of service is called an employee’s period of employment.
Continuous service
Continuous service is an unbroken period of service. It’s the period of service an employee has that counts towards the accrual of certain entitlements.
Excluded periods
For most entitlements the excluded periods are:
- unauthorised absences
- most types of unpaid leave
- some unpaid authorised absences.
An excluded period doesn’t break an employee’s period of continuous service. However, excluded periods don’t count when calculating the amount of an employee’s service.
Examples of unpaid leave that are usually excluded periods include:
Excluded period exceptions
Some periods of unpaid leave or unpaid authorised absences aren’t excluded periods. This means that the time spent away from work counts towards the employee’s period of continuous service.
This includes:
- community service leave, for example jury duty
- a period of stand down
- an absence which is usually an excluded period that an award says counts as service. For example, unpaid pandemic leave.
Other types of approved unpaid leave count towards an employee’s continuous service for certain entitlements. For details on exceptions to unpaid leave and service see the Unpaid leave page.
Entitlements that require continuous service
Some of the entitlements affected by the amount of continuous service the employee has are:
Breaking service
Ending employment usually breaks an employee’s period of service. However, there are some exceptions to this. For more information, see:
References
- section 22 - meaning of "service" and "continuous service"
- section 65 - request for flexible working arrangements
- section 67 - parental leave
- section 117 - notice of termination
- section 119 - redundancy
What to do next
- Find out about Employee entitlements
- Find out about Awards & agreements
- Complete a course in our Online learning centre
- Find out about Other workplace relations help
