Casual Work in Australia: The Most Casualised States (and Your Rights)

About 20.3% of Australian employees are casual — that is, they have no paid leave entitlements — according to the ABS Working Arrangements data for 2025. That's roughly 2.5 million people working without paid annual leave, paid sick leave, or guaranteed hours.

Casual work isn't spread evenly across the country. It's a bigger feature of some state economies than others, and it clusters in industries like hospitality, retail and care work. You can see the full state-by-state breakdown on our casual employment insights page.

South Australia has the highest casual rate at about 24.1% — nearly one in four employees. Queensland (21.6%) and Tasmania (21.4%) also sit above the national average. At the other end, the Australian Capital Territory has the lowest casual rate at just 15.5%, reflecting its large public-service workforce, followed by the Northern Territory (16.9%) and Victoria (18.8%).

The spread between the most and least casualised jurisdictions is close to 9 percentage points — a meaningful difference if you're weighing up job security in different parts of the country.

Casuals don't accrue paid annual or personal/carer's leave. In exchange, you're paid a casual loading — usually 25% on top of the base hourly rate for your classification — to compensate for those missing entitlements. If your payslip doesn't show that loading, you may be underpaid. You can check what you should be getting with our casual loading calculator.

Casuals still get other National Employment Standards protections, including unpaid carer's and compassionate leave, and (after a qualifying period) access to unfair dismissal in some circumstances. Eligible casuals can also request to convert to permanent employment — see our casual conversion tool.

Being called "casual" on paper doesn't automatically make you one. If you work regular, predictable hours over a long period with a firm advance commitment to ongoing work, you may in substance be a permanent employee — with all the leave entitlements that come with it. This matters: misclassified casuals can be owed back-paid leave.

If your roster looks the same week after week, it's worth checking where you really stand. Our casual or permanent checker walks you through the key factors, or you can ask our AI advisor about your specific situation.