Amid rising job cuts, these are your legal rights if you’re made redundant

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If you work for a small business or a big company like David Jones, your rights to redundancy payouts can vary. Here’s what you need to know.

This week, 188-year-old Australian retailer David Jones announced it will close 19 of its 38 stores after Christmas, after going into voluntary administration. The receivers are yet to say how many of its 6,000 employees will lose their jobs.

That news came a day after Qantas announced 850 jobs will be outsourced to India, as part of a longer-term shift to using more artificial intelligence.

In recent weeks, National Australia Bank said it will cut up to 2,500 jobs, or about 6% of its workers, with some to go before Christmas. Then high-profile Australian design company Canva announced 1,270 jobs, or 22% of its staff, will either have to change roles, be relocated, or lose their jobs.

Those are just the companies big enough to make headlines. Unemployment is now at a five-year high of 4.7%.

If you work for a small business or a big company like David Jones, your rights to redundancy payouts can vary. Here’s a brief guide to three scenarios in which you might lose your job – and where to get more help.

Let’s start with basic entitlements if your employer is still operating, but has decided to make job cuts. This is a business decision to get rid of the role you’re in, rather than anything you’ve done.

Under the National Employment Standards, eligible employees are entitled to redundancy pay when employment ends due to redundancy. Redundancy pay is calculated by the length of the employee’s continuous service.

Some employees aren’t entitled to redundancy pay under the national system. Casual employees, those with less than 12 months of continuous service, and employees of small businesses with fewer than 15 employees are among those who are excluded.

Employers must also pay out any outstanding employee entitlements, including annual leave and long service leave.

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