You are hiring. Maybe it is your first employee, or a reshaped roster ahead of a busy season, and either way the role works out at fewer than full-time hours. The box you tick, casual or part-time, will decide how you pay this person, what leave they build up, how the engagement ends, and how much of your week goes into the paperwork around it. The two labels are often used as if they were interchangeable. Under Australian workplace law they sit on different foundations, and the difference is tested against the working pattern in practice, not the name on the contract.
The options, and the question behind them
A casual employee is someone engaged with no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work. Work is offered and accepted on an as-needed basis, hours can fluctuate from week to week, and either side can usually end the arrangement without notice, subject to the applicable award or enterprise agreement. Part-time employment is different in kind rather than degree. A part-time employee is a permanent employee who works fewer than 38 hours a week on a regular pattern agreed in advance, and who receives the same core entitlements under the National Employment Standards (the NES) as a full-time employee, on a pro-rata basis.
The real question hiding inside "casual or part-time" is the substance of the arrangement, not the label. If your business can genuinely hold shifts back, and the person can genuinely knock them back, casual fits. If the role is ongoing work on set days, the arrangement is part-time in substance no matter what the contract says. Since the changes made by the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024 (Cth) commenced on 26 August 2024, s 15A of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (the Fair Work Act) requires that question to be answered by reference to the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the employment relationship. There is no third category called "casual with regular hours"; that is simply a fact pattern the law will look through.
What to weigh before you decide
Six factors do most of the work in this decision. Work through them with the specific role in front of you, because the answer can differ for every position in your business.
The hours you can actually guarantee
The first factor is the legal test itself. Under s 15A of the Fair Work Act, an employee is a casual only if the employment relationship is characterised by an absence of a firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work, and the employee is entitled to a casual loading or a specific casual rate under an award, agreement or contract. Whether that commitment exists is assessed on the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship, and the Act directs you to a set of considerations:
- Employer control: whether you can genuinely elect to offer or not offer work, in practice rather than on paper.
- Employee control: whether the person can genuinely accept or reject shifts.
- Future work: whether, given the nature of your enterprise, continuing work of the kind the person usually performs is reasonably likely to be available.
- Comparators: whether full-time or part-time employees perform the same kind of work in your business.
- Pattern: whether the person works a regular pattern, even one that fluctuates for reasonable absences.
A regular pattern on its own does not make someone permanent; the note to s 15A is explicit that an employee with a regular pattern may still be casual where there is no firm advance commitment. But the trap runs the other way. A person who works the same three days every week, whose shifts you never cancel, and who could not refuse them without consequences to the relationship is likely to be part-time in substance, however their contract is headed.
Pay and leave: loading versus pro-rata entitlements
The second factor is the money, and the two structures pay differently. The difference is not just arithmetic.
- Casual pay: the base rate plus a casual loading, which most modern awards set at 25 per cent (confirm the figure in your own instrument before you budget). The loading compensates for the leave casuals do not receive. Casuals get no paid annual leave, no paid personal or carer's leave, and no notice of termination or redundancy pay when the engagement ends.
- Part-time pay: the base rate without loading, plus paid annual leave and paid personal or carer's leave accrued pro-rata on ordinary hours, and notice and redundancy entitlements on termination.
What casuals still receive matters to the comparison. Under the NES, casual employees get 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave per year under s 106A of the Fair Work Act, two days of unpaid carer's leave and two days of unpaid compassionate leave per occasion, and unpaid community service leave. Superannuation is payable on ordinary time earnings for eligible casuals and part-timers alike, and in some states and territories long-serving casuals accrue long service leave. Part-time employees receive the paid family and domestic violence leave in full; it is not pro-rated down with their hours, as the Fair Work Ombudsman's part-time employees guide makes clear.
Flexibility when demand swings
The third factor is operational. Casual engagement suits businesses whose demand genuinely fluctuates: seasonal peaks, events, weather-dependent trade, project spikes. It also suits some workers, who want control over when they work and value the loading. Part-time roles suit steady, repeatable work where you want the same familiar person on the same days, where customer relationships matter, and where you would rather retain and train people than re-induct them each season. There is a cost side to both choices: the casual loading is a permanent premium on every hour worked, while part-time brings leave accruals and, down the track, notice and redundancy obligations. Flexibility also cuts both ways, so check your award before you decide, because many instruments set minimum engagement periods for casual shifts and minimum shift lengths or written hours agreements for part-time employees.
How the engagement ends
Fourth, the exit. A casual engagement can usually be ended without notice, subject to the instrument that applies and to the general protections against adverse action. A part-time employee must receive the notice period under s 117 of the Fair Work Act, or payment in lieu, and a genuine redundancy can trigger redundancy pay under s 119, scaled to the employee's length of continuous service. The surprise for many employers is unfair dismissal. "Casual" is not a shield. Service as a casual counts towards the minimum employment period only if the person worked as a regular casual with a reasonable expectation of continuing employment on a regular and systematic basis, under s 384 of the Fair Work Act. Once that threshold and the minimum period are met, six months for most employers and twelve months for a small business employer under s 383, a dismissed casual can challenge the dismissal like any other employee. That is a risk line you should draw before you need it.
The paperwork attached to each choice
Fifth, the compliance load. Every new employee, casual or part-time, must be given the Fair Work Information Statement before or as soon as practicable after starting, under s 125 of the Fair Work Act. Casuals must also be given the Casual Employment Information Statement at the start, again at the six-month mark, and then at twelve-monthly intervals, under s 125B. Part-time arrangements under many awards require a written agreement setting out the pattern of hours, which is where disputes about "agreed hours" usually start. Payroll has to be configured differently for each category, with loading and penalty rates for casuals and leave accrual for part-timers, and the Fair Work Regulations require employee records to be kept for set periods. Underpayment claims rarely begin with a grand dispute; they begin with a records gap and a payroll setting that was never tested.
What happens when the arrangement stops being casual
Sixth, the future. The NES now contains an employee-choice pathway to permanency. Once a casual has been employed for six months, or twelve months if you are a small business employer, they can give written notice that, having regard to s 15A and their current relationship with you, they believe they no longer meet the casual test, under s 66AAB of the Fair Work Act. You must consult with the employee and give a written response within 21 days, under s 66AAC. You can decline only on the grounds the Act allows: that the person still meets the casual test, that there are fair and reasonable operational grounds for not accepting, or that accepting would breach a recruitment or selection process required by law. If you accept, the person becomes full-time or part-time from the start of the first full pay period after your response, unless you agree on another day, under s 66AAD. You can also convert a casual voluntarily at any time if both sides agree. The practical point is that when a "casual" works a stable pattern for long enough, conversion is not a favour you grant; it is a process the Act runs on a fixed timetable.
How an Artificer Legal employment lawyer helps you make the call
This decision rewards being tested before it is made, rather than after a claim lands. An Artificer Legal employment lawyer would sit down with the actual role and work through the s 15A factors against your real roster, stress-testing whether the arrangement you intend can honestly be called casual. We would model the downside of getting it wrong, including the back-pay exposure for unpaid leave, loading and superannuation that a reclassification can produce, and the unfair dismissal risk that attaches to regular and systematic casuals. If part-time is the honest answer, we draft the employment contract that records the agreed hours, pay and award coverage, and check your payroll configuration and record-keeping against the instrument that applies. If a conversion notice arrives, we help you respond inside the 21-day window with reasons that fit the statutory grounds, or document a lawful decline. And if a dispute has already started, we can take it from the response through the Fair Work Commission's processes.
The test that decides the label
The takeaway is the question the Act puts to you at the moment of hiring: does your business make a firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work? If it does, the role is part-time, and the contract should say so from day one. The most expensive mistake in this area is treating the label as the decision, when the working pattern is the decision and the label has to follow it.
From there the shape of the choice is straightforward to hold in mind. Casual employment buys genuine flexibility and pays a loading in place of leave, but it is not a default setting for "fewer hours", and its protections, including paid family and domestic violence leave and unfair dismissal access for regular and systematic casuals, are broader than many employers assume. Part-time employment is a permanent role with regular agreed hours, pro-rata paid leave, and notice and redundancy obligations attached. Both categories feed into conversion pathways that depend on how the work actually runs. Set the arrangement up to match that reality, keep the statements, contracts and payroll aligned, and have the classification checked while the pattern is still yours to choose.