Under Australian laws, employees work up to 38 hours in a week, or 7.6 hours (7 hours, 36 minutes) each day. These are classed as regular hours of work, and time worked outside of these hours can attract overtime, higher rates of pay (“penalties”), or be counted as time off in lieu to be taken later.
Maximum weekly hours
An employee can work a maximum of 38 hours in a week unless an employer asks them to work reasonable extra hours. See our Maximum weekly hours fact sheet.
In Australia, an employee can work up to 38 hours in a week or 7.6 hours a day. The spread of hours must be defined with the employer, usually worked from Monday to Friday. Many organisations may ask employees to remain available to work 'reasonable overtime' where required.
What are the maximum hours for a shift? In Australia, the maximum number of ordinary hours a casual employee can work is 12 hours in a day or shift. A casual employee must have time off after this and there must be time for meal breaks. This averages about 38 hours over a 4-week roster cycle or a 9.5 hour week.
Under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), employers are prohibited from requesting or requiring full-time employees to work more than 38 hours per week, unless those additional hours are reasonable.
You can have paid work up to 29 hours per week. You can do this without losing your Disability Support Pension payment providing you still meet the income test. If your employment income reduces your payment to zero for 6 fortnights in a row, we'll pause your Disability Support Pension for up to 2 years.
Legally, your employer can't make you work more than 48 hours a week, including overtime. If they want you to work more than that, your employer has to ask you to opt out of the 48-hour limit. Find out more about the maximum weekly working time limit.
No overtime can be worked in conjunction with a 12 hour shift (Award Clause 5(j)). How many 12 hour shifts can I work in a row? You can work a maximum of three consecutive 12 hour shifts in a row, except once in a six week cycle you can work four consecutive shifts if you request this (Award Clause 5(f)).
Full-Time Employees Cannot Work More Than 10 Consecutive Days. As part of the hours of work that your full-time employees work, it's important to make sure that any full-time employees don't work more than 10 days in a row, regardless of the needs of the workplace.
Just like under federal law, there is no maximum number of hours a non-exempt worker can work in a day. Unlike federal law, which only provides overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week, California's overtime law applies to a day's work, as well.
If you work 120 hours per week, you'll have 48 hours for free-time activities. This translates to about 7 hours of leisure time and 5 hours of sleep daily. The raw numbers say that working at least 80 hours per week is a manageable feat — but, the likelihood decreases as the number of working hours increases.
Image credit: AlSimonov. Working 72–76 hours per week is not rare, but working that amount of time and feeling balanced is quite rare.
But a study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine shows that consistently surpassing this standard can be detrimental to your health. Researchers found that working 61 to 70 hours a week increased the risk of coronary heart disease by 42 percent, and working 71 to 80 hours increased it by 63 percent.
For adult employees, there is no legal limit to the number of hours that one can work per week, but the Fair Labor Standards Act dictates standards for overtime pay in both the private and public sector.
In early 2022, the Australian government relaxed working limits for student visa holders. This allows international students to work unlimited hours, even during their course. The federal government recently announced that these unrestricted work rights will stay in place until June 30, 2023.
The federal overtime provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay.
An employee is not be entitled to be paid for any "reasonable additional hours" they work. However, an employee may be entitled to be paid overtime, penalty rates or other allowances for time worked outside of or in addition to their ordinary hours of work if they are covered by an award or enterprise agreement.
Yes, employees that have worked five hours or more are entitled to a break in most cases. However, this should be reasonable. If it is not in the employee's best interest to work for five hours straight without a break, then it's important for employers to adjust as they could be creating an unsafe work environment.
You can't work more than an average of eight hours in a 24-hour period. The maximum you can work per average week is 48 hours. You are entitled to a 24-hour rest day each week, leaving six days when you can legally work.
Break rights
Full-time employees working between 7 to 10 hours a day are entitled to 2 paid rest breaks of 10 minutes and one unpaid meal break of 30-60 minutes.
Find out more at Secure Jobs, Better Pay: Changes to Australian workplace laws. Full-time employees usually work an average of 38 hours each week. They're usually employed on a permanent basis or on a fixed term contract.
What is the current national minimum wage? From 1 July 2022, the national minimum wage is $21.38 per hour or $812.60 per 38 hour week (before tax). Casual employees covered by the national minimum wage also get at least a 25% casual loading.
Under Australian laws, employees work up to 38 hours in a week, or 7.6 hours (7 hours, 36 minutes) each day. These are classed as regular hours of work, and time worked outside of these hours can attract overtime, higher rates of pay (“penalties”), or be counted as time off in lieu to be taken later.
Employees are entitled to; A daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours per 24 hour period. A weekly rest period of 24 consecutive hours per seven days, following a daily rest period.
Let's keep it straight to the point: working more than 55-hour per week leads to early death from stroke and heart-related problems. A global study by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that long hours workweeks account for more than 745,000 deaths from stroke and heart disease every single year.