Full time and part time employees are entitled to paid personal leave. Casuals are not entitled to paid personal leave.

All employees, including casual employees, are also entitled to unpaid personal leave for caring purposes.

An employee can take paid personal leave:

• because the employee is not fit for work due to a personal illness or injury; or
• to provide care or support to a member of the employee’s family or household who requires care or support because of:

• a personal illness or injury affecting the member; or
• an unexpected emergency affecting the member.

A member of the family or household means any of the following people:

• the employee’s spouse or de facto partner;
• a child, step child or grandchild of the employee (including an adult child, step child or grandchild);
• a parent, step parent or grandparent of the employee;
• a sibling of the employee; or
• any other person who, at or immediately before the relevant time lived with the employee as a member of the employee’s household.

Employees can take personal leave in either whole or part days depending upon the particular circumstances.

For each year of service, full time and part time employees are entitled to paid personal leave equivalent to the number of hours the employee is required ordinarily to work in a two week period during that year, up to 76 hours.

Personal leave accrues on a weekly basis.

Personal leave is a cumulative entitlement, which means that any unused personal leave is carried over and added to the next year’s entitlement.

All employees, including casual employees, are entitled to unpaid personal leave for caring purposes under the MCE Act.

An employee is entitled to two days of unpaid personal leave for each occasion when a member of the employee’s family or household requires care or support because of:

• a personal illness or personal injury affecting the member of the family or household; or
• an unexpected emergency affecting the household member of the family or household.

An employee may take unpaid personal leave for each permissible occasion as a single continuous period of up to two days; or any separate periods to which the employee and their employer agree.

Under the MCE Act, employees do not have a specific entitlement to unpaid personal leave for a personal illness or injury. However this will not prevent an employer and employee from agreeing on some other form of leave, including leave without pay.

Personal leave accrues on a weekly basis and can be calculated based on how many weeks an employee has worked - For example:

• a full time employee accrues 1.461 hours of personal leave for each completed week of work (based on the standard 38 hour week); and
• a part time employee will accrue the relevant proportion of 1.461 hours of personal leave for each completed week of work, based on how many hours they have worked that week.

Wageline's Personal leave calculation guide provides an overview of how to work out paid personal leave entitlements for full time and part time employees. 

Employees are to be paid their current rate of pay when they take personal leave. 

Commission-only and piece rate employees are to be paid the highest of the following for a period of personal leave:

• a rate payable under a WA award or contract of employment for a period of leave;
• a rate calculated according to the employee’s average weekly earnings over a period totalling 365 days immediately before the time the personal leave is taken;
• the applicable minimum rate of pay.

Where the rate of payment for a period of personal leave is being calculated according to the employee’s average weekly earnings over the 365 days before the leave is taken, the following periods are not included in the calculation:

• any period during which the employee was on unpaid leave; and
• any period during which the employee was stood down in accordance with an award, agreement or legislative provision.

No, personal leave is a cumulative entitlement which means that if the employee does not use up their full entitlement in any one year, the leftover portion is carried over and added to the next year’s entitlement.

An employer can require an employee to provide reasonable evidence before they are paid for any time off work on sick leave or carer’s leave.

Reasonable evidence may include a medical certificate, but is not necessarily limited to this – for example if the employee comes to work with a cast on their arm, or the employer actually sent an employee home because they looked ill, or the employer was present when the employee received a phone call to pick up their child up from school due to illness, then any of these examples could potentially count as reasonable evidence.

In most circumstances, if an employee has used up all of their personal leave then they are not entitled to be paid for any further time they have off work for illness, injury or caring purposes. There are a limited number of WA awards that provide for annual leave to be used in situations where personal leave has been exhausted.  

No, under the MCE Act, full time and part time employees must take any paid personal leave they have available before accessing unpaid personal leave.

An employer must keep records of all personal leave taken. All state system employers are legally required to keep employment records recording specific information - Visit the Employment records - Employer obligations page for details.