In most cases casual service doesn’t count. The National Employment Standards (NES) excludes casual service when calculating redundancy pay and notice.

Example:

Samantha has worked for her employer for 9 years.

She worked on and off as a casual for the first 2 years and then worked full-time for the next 7 years.

She was made redundant. She gets redundancy pay and notice from the NES.

Her redundancy pay and notice is worked out on her 7 years work as a full-time employee. Her 2 years of casual work isn’t counted.

Are there any exceptions?

There are some cases where casual service might count. This isn’t common.

To work out whether casual service meets an exception, legal advice should be sought. This is because each case requires an assessment of the person’s individual circumstances and can involve legal considerations.

Example:

An agreement might say that:

• casuals get redundancy pay and notice, or
• time worked as a casual counts when working out redundancy pay and notice.

The agreement would need to be checked to see if the person meets the eligibility or requirements.