Coronavirus and Australian workplace laws
We're here to help you understand your rights and responsibilities at work during the coronavirus outbreak.
If you have a question about workplace entitlements, you've come to the right website. We work with employees, employers and the community to educate and encourage compliance with Australia's workplace laws.
Do you need information about workplace rights and obligations during coronavirus in your own language? While we’re working on expanding our in-language services, use our website translator to read essential information about workplace laws during coronavirus in your language.
We encourage employees and employers to work together to find the most beneficial and workable solutions that suit their individual workplaces and circumstances. Working together, there are various options to help business and employment continuity through this time.
Continuity of business is a significant issue for employers and their employees during this unprecedented and difficult time. Our interactive graphic below outlines the options available to businesses affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and the implications for employees.
Click on each section below for information and links to information and advice about rights and responsibilities at work during coronavirus.
Check our News and updates section below to see what’s been updated recently.
Businesses and people affected by the coronavirus outbreak may also be eligible for government financial support. Visit our Government information about coronavirus page for links to government agencies and services across Australia who can provide assistance with health advice, payments and services, business support, travel advice, tax and superannuation, and others.
JobKeeper changes to the Fair Work Act
On 9 April 2020, the Fair Work Act was amended to support the implementation and operation of the JobKeeper scheme in Australian workplaces.
For information about the changes and how they apply, go to JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme.
We will continue to update our information and encourage you to check our website regularly for updates. You can also sign up for email updates and we’ll email you when more information is available.
Unpaid pandemic leave and annual leave flexibility in awards
On 8 April 2020, the Fair Work Commission made determinations varying 99 awards to provide unpaid pandemic leave and greater flexibility for annual leave for employees in many awards. Read more at Unpaid pandemic leave and annual leave changes to awards.
Health & safety in the workplace
Workplaces must follow the rules about health and safety during coronavirus to help stop it spreading. Find out more about:
- rules and obligations under workplace health and safety laws
- how to manage the risk of coronavirus in the workplace
- where to go for help.
Learn more about Health and safety in the workplace during coronavirus.
Arranging flexible work
There are a range of flexible working arrangements that employers and employees can explore together that may suit their individual needs and circumstances. These include:
- working from home
- changing the number of hours an employee works
- changing the start or finish times of employees' shifts
- changing patterns of work, such as rostering arrangements
- changing the type of work done by employees.
Flexibility in the workplace allows employers and employees to make arrangements about working conditions that suit them. Employers and employees need to consider and comply with any requirements under the Fair Work Act, an applicable award, enterprise agreement, employment contract or workplace policy.
Under the new JobKeeper changes to the Fair Work Act, in certain circumstances, qualifying employers can temporarily change employees’ usual duties and locations of work, and agree with their employee to change days and times of work.
Learn more about arranging flexible work during coronavirus:
More information:
Using paid leave
Employers and employees are encouraged to explore options that enable an employee to take their accrued leave entitlements during the coronavirus outbreak. Options include:
- taking accrued annual leave
- taking any other paid leave (such as long service leave or paid leave available under an award, enterprise agreement or employment contract)
- directing employees to take accrued annual leave in certain circumstances
- taking any other paid leave by agreement between the employee and the employer.
Employers may also choose to give employees extra paid leave that is above their minimum entitlements for a period of time (e.g. instead of standing down the employee without pay).
Under the new JobKeeper changes to the Fair Work Act, qualifying employers can request an employee take paid annual leave, and agree with the employee for them to take leave at half pay.
Learn more:
Using unpaid leave
In many circumstances, employees won’t have access to paid leave during the coronavirus outbreak. For example, if they are permanent but have already used all their accrued leave entitlements. In these situations, employers and employees can agree for an employee to take unpaid leave.
Under the Fair Work Act, unpaid leave is also available for employees in certain circumstances, such as unpaid carer’s leave for casual employees.
Learn more:
More information:
Standing down employees & business closures
Employers may be able to stand their employees down without pay during the coronavirus outbreak for a number of different reasons. These can include where:
- the business has closed because of an enforceable government direction relating to non-essential services (which means there is no work at all for employees to do even from another location)
- a large proportion of the workforce is in self-quarantine meaning the remaining employees can’t be usefully employed
- there’s a stoppage of work due to lack of supply for which the employer can’t be held responsible
- a ‘qualified employer’ is using a JobKeeper enabling stand down direction in accordance with the new temporary JobKeeper changes to the Fair Work Act.
Enterprise agreements and employment contracts can have different or extra rules about when an employer can stand down an employee without pay, for example, a requirement to notify or consult.
Employees that are stood down remain employed during the period of the stand down.
Learn more about:
Ending employment
If other options have been exhausted, or if they aren’t feasible, some employers may need to make their employees’ positions redundant in response to a business downturn caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Where this happens, employers must make sure they comply with any requirement to notify and consult about the redundancies under an applicable award, enterprise agreement, employment contract or workplace policy. They also need to make reasonable efforts to find their employees other jobs either within the business or within one of its associated entities.
They also need to provide those employees with their correct entitlements, which may include notice, redundancy pay and payment of any accrued leave entitlements.
The Fair Work Act protects employees from being dismissed for a number of reasons, including:
- because they are temporarily away from work because they are sick (such as with coronavirus)
- discrimination
- any reason that is harsh, unjust or unreasonable or another protected right.
Flexibility in the workplace allows employers and employees to make arrangements about working conditions that suit them. Employers and employees need to consider and comply with any requirements under the Fair Work Act, an applicable award, enterprise agreement, employment contract or workplace policy.
Learn more:
Tools:
Business bankruptcy & insolvency
During these challenging and unprecedented times, some businesses may need to close because they are no longer profitable or run out of money.
This can mean that employees lose their jobs, and in some cases where a business is bankrupt or goes into insolvency, employers may not be able to pay their employees the wages and entitlements they’re owed.
When an employer is bankrupt, or goes into liquidation or insolvency, employees may be able to get help through the Fair Entitlements Guarantee.
Sometimes, an employer might close their business and abandon it without placing it into liquidation. Where this happens, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) may be able to help recover unpaid employment entitlements.
More information:
Contact information
If you have an urgent enquiry about your workplace obligations or entitlements, you can call our coronavirus hotline.
Go to Contact information for advice on the best way to contact us if you have an enquiry about workplace rights and entitlements during coronavirus.
We also have a number of self-service tools including:
- Pay and Conditions Tool, also used by our advisers to find pay rates, leave, notice and redundancy entitlements
- My account lets you save pay rates and awards, get workplace information relevant to you and more
- Free Online courses to help with having difficult conversations, starting a new job or managing performance
- Templates and guides for record-keeping and pay slips.
News and updates
22 May 2020
Added:
Updated:
- We added examples to our Leave & the JobKeeper scheme page to illustrate:
- interaction of leave periods with JobKeeper stand down directions
- accrual of leave during a JobKeeper stand down.
- We added examples to our Pay & the JobKeeper scheme page to illustrate:
- requests for secondary employment
- how directions and JobKeeper payments affect other minimum entitlements
- public holiday pay.
20 May 2020
Added:
- We’ve added a new page Resolving workplace issues during coronavirus. It has links to resources to help you with resolving workplace issues, explains how to ask for help, and has information about disputes and enforcement relating to the JobKeeper scheme.
- We’ve added our website translator to this website. You can now use the translator to read some pages in your language, including our JobKeeper wage subsidy section. More pages on this website will be available to translate soon.
19 May 2020
Added:
- We’ve added templates to our JobKeeper enabling stand down directions page and Stand down during coronavirus page that employers can use if they need to stand down employees. They include:
- a letter to notify an employee of a JobKeeper enabling stand down
- a template to issue an employee with a JobKeeper enabling stand down
- a template to issue a stand down for employers not accessing the JobKeeper scheme.
13 May 2020
Updated:
12 May 2020
Added:
Previous news and updates
To view a list of previous updates to our website, go to our Previous news and updates page.
About our information
We'll continue to update the information on our website as the situation develops and as needed. The information provided is current as at the time of the last update. It is not legal advice but represents the views of the Fair Work Ombudsman based on the best available information. We encourage you to regularly check this page for more information.