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Anthony McIlroy
Published on

Law changes from April 2016 that you need to know about!

gen x-206Changes include:

  • the minimum wage increasing to $15.25 an hour and the starting out and training hourly wage increasing to $12.20 an hour.
  • Parental leave payments are increasing from 16 weeks to 18 weeks.
  • Parental leave payments are also extended to non-standard workers (such as casual, seasonal, and employees with more than one employer) and those who have recently changed jobs.
  • Parental leave and payments also become available to eligible primary carers other than just biological or formal adoptive parents including Home for Life carers, whāngai, and grandparents raising a child in place of the child’s parents.
  • Eligible parents of preterm babies will be able to receive additional weekly payments – up to 13 weeks – for each week the baby was born prior to the 37 week gestation period.
  • Plus other changes to strengthen the enforcement of minimum employment standards and end unfair practices such as zero-hours contracts and unreasonable deductions also come into force from this month.

 

To see a full summary of the changes and an Employment Toolkit see http://employment.govt.nz/er/.   The toolkit provides information to help business people get up to speed quickly with changes.

Source SmartPayroll

Topics: employment law NZ minimum wage Paid Parental Leave entitlement