Written casual employment agreement — a written agreement is required for every employee in New Zealand regardless of employment type. "Casual employee" is not a defined term in statute, so the terms must accurately describe the absence of any guaranteed hours or obligation to offer or accept work; a genuinely regular pattern of shifts can override the label in this document.
⚠️ This is a blank template, not legal advice: check the wording with a lawyer and adapt it to your jurisdiction and your case.
This template has no optional clauses: the text is the same for everyone.
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CASUAL EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT
This Agreement is made between , the "Employer", and , the "Employee", engaged as a casual employee from .
1. NATURE OF THE ENGAGEMENT 1.1. Nature of work: 1.2. 1.3. "Casual employee" is not a defined term under the Employment Relations Act 2000. Each shift or period of work offered and accepted is a separate engagement; there is no obligation on the Employer to offer work, and no obligation on the Employee to accept any shift offered.
2. PAY 2.1. Hourly rate: .
3. HOLIDAY PAY 3.1. Method: 3.2. Where paid as pay-as-you-go, holiday pay of % is added to and identified separately on each payment, in lieu of accrued annual holidays, consistent with section 28 of the Holidays Act 2003 — this is only lawful where the work is genuinely intermittent or irregular. If the Employee's pattern of shifts becomes regular, the Employee is instead entitled to accrued annual holidays, and continuing to pay 8% pay-as-you-go would itself be unlawful. 3.3. ⚠️ The proposed Employment Leave Bill would replace the 8% pay-as-you-go rate with a 12.5% leave compensation rate — check the rate in force on the date of payment.
4. SICK LEAVE 4.1. 4.2. A casual employee working on a regular and systematic basis may become entitled to paid sick leave after six months of that employment, under the Holidays Act 2003.
5. RESOLVING PROBLEMS 5.1. 5.2. As required by section 65 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, this plain-language clause explains how to resolve employment relationship problems, including the 90-day window to raise a personal grievance.
6. ENDING THE ENGAGEMENT 6.1. Either party may end the casual arrangement at any time by not offering, or not accepting, further shifts.
⚠️ A regular, predictable pattern of shifts over time can turn what is labelled "casual" into a de facto permanent part-time role regardless of this Agreement's wording — review the actual working pattern periodically.
SIGNATURES Employer ______________ / on behalf of / Employee ______________ / /
This is a boilerplate template, not legal advice. New Zealand employment, privacy, consumer, food-safety, and work health & safety law combines the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Holidays Act 2003 (under active reform via the proposed Employment Leave Bill), the Privacy Act 2020, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1986, the Fair Trading Act 1986, the Food Act 2014, and the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 — several of which are mid-reform as of mid-2026 and change on fixed dates that this template flags but does not resolve for you. Have it reviewed and adapted by a lawyer or Employment New Zealand before use, check current guidance and free official templates at employment.govt.nz (including the Employment Agreement Builder at eab.business.govt.nz), and confirm the minimum wage and any other statutory rate in force on the date of use (rates change every 1 April).
3 of 10 fields are taken from the company, employee or counterparty record, the questionnaire can be dictated to the AI, and the finished document comes with a number, a PDF and an acknowledgement record.