Casual and part-time employees are paid overtime when they work:

• more than 38 hours per week or 76 hours per fortnight
• for more than 10 hours on a day or shift.

Working more than 10 hours on a day or shift

A casual or part-time employee gets paid overtime if they work more than 10 continuous hours on a day or shift. This means:

• if the shift spans midnight, going across two calendar days, overtime is paid even if there is less than 10 hours worked in each of the calendar days
• overtime isn’t paid if an employee works more than 10 hours in a calendar day unless the hours are worked as part of the same shift.

Example

Constance is a part-time home care employee. She usually works night shifts.

On Thursday Constance started her shift at 8pm. Her shift was due to finish at 6am. Constance didn’t finish her shift until 8am on Friday.

Constance worked 4 hours on Thursday and 8 hours on Friday. Her total shift was 12 continuous hours.

Constance is paid 2 hours’ overtime.

Example

Faye is a casual social and community services employee.

On Monday Faye started her shift at 10pm. She finished her shift at 7am on Tuesday.

At 8pm on Tuesday Faye started her next shift. She worked until 3am on Wednesday.

On Tuesday Faye worked a total of 11 hours, across 2 shifts.

Even though Faye worked for more than 10 hours on Tuesday, she doesn’t get paid overtime. This is because she didn’t work more than 10 continuous hours.

Working more than 10 hours in a broken shift

Hours worked on a broken shift are treated as continuous. If a part-time or casual employee works for more than 10 hours on a broken shift, they’ll be paid overtime.

If a broken shift is worked over a period that’s longer than 12 hours, all time worked beyond the 12 hour period is paid at 200%.

Example

Olivier is a part-time social and community services employee.

On Monday Olivier worked a broken shift. His first period of work was from 6am to midday, with a 30 minute lunch break. His second period of work was from 1pm to 6pm.

Olivier worked for 10.5 hours over this broken shift.

On Monday Olivier worked 30 minutes of overtime. He was paid 150% of his minimum hourly rate for that period.

For more information, see Hours of Work.