Do I Have To Pay Superannuation For Casual Employees?

Superannuation is money (termed contributions) paid by an employer directly into an employee’s account with the purpose of not being accessed by the employee until the employee retires, reaches a certain age, or other special circumstances.

Whether an employee is employed casually or not does not affect whether you have to pay them superannuation.

Contributions are in addition to the employee’s wage and must be paid to the following employees regardless of if they work full time, part time or casual;

• employees who are over the age of 18, and are paid a gross minimum amount of $450 per month,
• employees under 18 but who work over 30 hours a week and make a gross minimum amount of $450 per month.

The rate of superannuation is at the time of writing a minimum of 9.5% of the employee’s ‘ordinary time earnings’. However, employers can also pay more superannuation than 9.5%. Employers can use the government’s moneysmart website to calculate how much super to pay.

Ordinary time earnings does not include overtime, but does include other allowances such as;

• commissions,
• over-award payments,
• piece rates,
• annual leave loading,
• sick leave,
• termination payments,
• allowances such as danger,
• retention and hourly on-call allowances,
• workers compensation return to work,  
• bonuses, eg Christmas bonus, performance bonus,
• shift loadings.

Employees usually have the chance to choose which super fund they want superannuation paid into, and can inform work when they first start. If the employee does not make a choice the workplace will select a super fund for the employee.

Employees also have the opportunity to make their own extra contributions to their superannuation. In some cases this can be through salary sacrificing.

Lastly, employers may also have to pay superannuation to their contractors, where contractors are paid mainly for their labour. You can check out more about paying contractors super here.