No matter where you’re based out of, we can tell you one thing: Australia has different labor laws than your home country (unless your home country is Australia, that is). If you don’t do things right, you’ll be putting your company at the risk of fines—and risk losing the talent you brought onboard. Fortunately, doing things right is pretty easy if you take the right route.
If you want to successfully hire in
Australia
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Australia
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Panther for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Australia
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Australia
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Panther’s locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Panther, then $49 per month to hire your contractors with Panther. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Australia
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Australia
, you can pay them with Panther in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Australia than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Australia
Full-time employees are entitled to 4 weeks of paid leave per year, while employees who work in shifts receive 5 weeks.
Public holidays vary by state.
Employees are entitled to 10 days paid leave per year which can be used if the employee is sick or if they need to care for a family member.
Pregnant employees receive 4 months of paid maternity leave; 1 month of prenatal leave and 3 months of postpartum leave. 50% of the payments are paid by the employer and the other 50% is paid by the CCSS (Costa Rican Social Security Fund).
Fathers are entitled to 5 days unpaid leave at the time of the birth or adoption of a child.
Parental leave is an unpaid leave that lasts for 12 months, and it is possible to request an additional 12 months from the employer.
None.
None.
In Australis, employees are entitled to have 2 days paid leave.
Reason for termination varies based on the number of employees an employee has and the length and type of service:
Employees dismissed in the first 6 months of employment (or 12 months of employment if employed by a small business) cannot make a claim of “unfair dismissal” to the Fair Work Commission. However, there are some exceptions to this known as General Protections matters where there is no minimum engagement period applying.
Unfair dismissal applications are heard in the Fair Work Commission – a specialist employment tribunal.
The notice period is determined by the amount of time the employee has been employed:
If the employee is over the age of 45 and has been employed for at least 2 years, they are entitled to an additional week of notice.
Severance pay is given based on a continuous period of service, and the pay rate is given for ordinary hours worked:
The probation period is 6 months, however, if an employer has 15 employees, it is extended to 12 months. In addition, employers are able to shorten the minimum probation period. In doing so, however, the employer forgoes the benefits of a probation period.
The standard workweek is 38 hours.
Minimum employment conditions are outlined in the Fair Work Act, 2009 and Industrial Awards. Awards are either industry-based or occupation-based.
Employees covered by Awards are generally paid overtime. Most Awards provide for overtime to be paid for time worked in excess of 38 hours per week, or in excess of 10 hours per day. Overtime or a penalty is generally paid to Award based employees for work performed on a weekend or a public holiday.
If an employee is not an Award employee, they are considered to be “Award Free.” Award Free employees do not have a statutory right to be paid overtime.
However, such employees do have the right to work only 38 plus reasonable additional hours per week. There is no formal definition of what is “reasonable additional hours,” however, such employees are generally expected to work overtime hours that are necessary to complete the job they are employed to do.
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