How to use a sick leave calculator for a 38 hour week
In Australia, the National Employment Standards (NES) protect workers by mandating 10 days of paid sick and carer's leave per year for full-time employees. Just like annual leave, this balance is usually displayed in hours on your payslip, which can be confusing.
If you work a standard schedule, searching for a sick leave calculator 38 hour week tool is the easiest way to verify your balance. Because a standard full-time day is 7.6 hours, 10 days equals exactly 76 hours of total leave per year. When you divide this by 52 weeks, you accrue paid medical time off at a continuous rate of roughly 1.461 hours per week.
Personal leave vs. Carer's leave
You will often hear the terms sick leave and personal leave used interchangeably. A personal leave calculator works exactly the same way, because all these days come from the exact same bucket of accrued hours.
- Sick leave: You take this when you are personally suffering from an illness or injury.
- Carer's leave: You take this when you need to provide care or support to an immediate family member who is sick, injured, or facing an unexpected emergency.
Note: Employers have the right to request evidence (such as a medical certificate or statutory declaration) for as little as 1 day of personal leave.
Do part-time employees get sick leave?
Yes. Part-time employees are fully entitled to paid personal and carer's leave, but it accrues on a pro-rata basis. For example, if you work 19 hours a week (half of a full-time 38-hour schedule), you will accumulate roughly 0.73 hours of sick leave per week. Casual employees do not receive paid sick leave, as this is compensated by their casual loading.
Does sick leave get paid out when you resign?
This is one of the most common misconceptions among Australian workers. No, unused sick leave is not cashed out.
If you resign, are fired, or are made redundant, your entire accrued sick leave balance is wiped clean on your termination date. You cannot claim it as cash. The only leave that is legally required to be converted to cash is your annual leave balance.