Employees can take sick leave when they’re sick or injured and can’t come to work. They can also take leave to care for someone who is sick or injured.

Sick and carer’s leave is also known as personal leave.

Employees can take carer’s leave to care for or support a person that lives with them or a member of their immediate family (eg. spouse, partner, parent, step-parent, child, sibling, grandparent). The person must be ill or injured or need help with an unexpected emergency.

Employees accumulate sick and carer’s leave as soon as they start working. It can be taken any time, including during the first 12 months of work.

Employers can ask employees to give evidence about why they had to take leave. This is usually a doctor’s certificate or a statutory declaration.

How much leave does an employee get?

Full-time and part-time employees get up to 10 days of sick and carer’s leave every year. The amount of leave depends on how many hours they usually work each week. Any leave left over at the end of each year carries over to the next year.

Casuals get 2 days of unpaid carer’s leave each time they need it.

Full-time and part-time employees can take unpaid carer’s leave if they don’t have any paid sick or carer’s leave left.

End of employment

Employers don’t usually have to pay employees for any sick and carer’s leave they haven’t used when their employment ends.