Tasmania Long Service Leave Calculator

How the entitlement is worked out

Section 8(2)(a) of the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (Tas) provides that on completion of at least 10 years continuous employment with the same employer, an employee is entitled to 8 and two thirds weeks of long service leave for the first 10 years, plus a further 4 and one third weeks for each additional 5 years of continuous employment.

This calculator applies that formula continuously rather than only in 5 year steps, because section 8(2)(a)(iii) also provides an additional proportionate period on termination for the part of a further 5 year period already worked since the last full accrual.

Before the qualifying period: pro rata payments

Section 8(3) sets out when an employee who has completed at least 7 years but less than 10 years of continuous employment is entitled to a pro rata payment on termination, calculated under section 8(2)(b) as the proportion of 8 and two thirds weeks that the employee's years of service bear to 10 years. The qualifying circumstances are: reaching retirement age, employment ending because of an illness serious enough to justify the termination, the employee resigning because of incapacity or a domestic or other pressing necessity, or the employer ending the employment for any reason other than the employee's serious and wilful misconduct.

Death is covered separately by section 9(2): if an employee (other than a mining employee, who has separate rules in section 9(3)) dies after at least 7 but less than 10 years, the estate is paid ordinary pay for 1/60th of the period of continuous employment (about 0.867 of a week per year, the same rate as the ordinary pro rata), and after more than 10 years the same 1/60th rate applies to service since the last full accrual.

Cashing out while employed

Section 10 allows an employee who has become entitled to a period of long service leave to elect, by agreement with the employer, to accept payment in lieu of that leave instead of taking it. Unlike South Australia's equivalent provision, section 10 does not itself require that agreement to be in writing.

Taking leave in advance

Section 12(1) requires leave to be granted by the employer as soon as practicable after the employee becomes entitled to it. Section 12(1)(a) allows the leave to be postponed by agreement or, failing agreement, to a date the Secretary directs, which cannot be earlier than 6 months after the direction, and section 12(5) allows already accrued leave to be split into two periods by agreement.

No provision in the Act permits leave to be taken in anticipation of the entitlement accruing, in contrast to South Australia. Tasmania's Act only lets the parties postpone or split leave that has already accrued; it does not provide a mechanism for taking leave before that point.

Portable long service scheme

The Construction Industry (Long Service) Act 1997 (Tas) establishes a portable long service leave scheme for the construction industry, administered by TasBuild Limited as trustee under the scheme's trust deed. The Act itself sets out registration requirements, a levy imposing power, and record keeping obligations, and guarantees that the scheme's benefits will be no less favourable than those under the scheme it replaced.

The Act does not, however, set out the actual qualifying service threshold or the weeks of leave formula; those figures sit in TasBuild's trust deed, which is not published as legislation. This calculator does not model the construction portable scheme, and no other Tasmanian industry has a portable long service leave scheme established by legislation.

Pay basis: what rate leave is paid at

Section 11(1) provides that pay during long service leave is reckoned as the remuneration the employee would reasonably have expected to receive had they continued working normally throughout the leave period. Section 11(2) assumes normal weekly hours with no overtime, and disregards disability allowances, travel payments and discretionary bonuses.

Where pay is results based, section 11(3) requires averaging over the 3 months ending on the start of the relevant period, a shorter window than South Australia's 12 month commission averaging rule. Where there is no fixed rate at all, section 11(4) requires a 12 month average instead, and section 11(6) applies the same 12 month average to work out normal weekly hours where there is no fixed number.

How service is counted

Section 5(3) adds that an employee regularly employed for at least 32 hours in each 4-week period is deemed continuously employed even if the work is part-time, casual, under several contracts, or alongside other employment.

Section 5(4) provides that where a business is transmitted to a new employer, continuity is deemed not to have been broken, and prior service with the old employer counts as service with the new one; sections 5(5) to (7) extend the same treatment to transfers between associated corporations. Section 5(1) lists breaks that do not count against continuity, including various forms of leave, illness, industrial disputes where the employee returns under a settlement, and employer caused breaks followed by re-employment within a set period, while section 5(2) sets out which of those gap periods are actually counted towards the years of service themselves.

Taking the leave: timing and notice

Section 12(1) requires the employer to grant leave as soon as practicable once the employee is entitled, subject to postponement by agreement or Secretary direction as described above. Section 12(10) also means an employer need not grant leave at all until it reaches a full 8 and two thirds weeks for a first entitlement, or 4 and one third weeks for a subsequent one.

The Act sets no notice period, and it gives the employer no power of its own to fix the date: without agreement, only the Secretary can direct when postponed leave starts.

What this calculator does not model

This tool calculates the general entitlement under the Long Service Leave Act 1976 (Tas) only. It does not model the construction industry portable scheme, whose exact entitlement formula is set by TasBuild's trust deed rather than the Act, and it does not model any award, enterprise agreement or employment contract that may provide a better entitlement.