National

Unions demand an extra week of annual leave for workers

Mar 4, 2026

An employee serving a plate of food at a cafe in Brisbane — Unions have launched a bid to increase workers' standard annual leave from four to five weeks. -AAP Image

Millions of Australian workers would receive an extra week of paid leave each year if a union push to change federal employment standards succeeds.

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The Australian Council of Trade Unions on Wednesday launched a bid to increase the standard annual leave entitlements from four to five weeks for full-time workers and from five to six weeks for shift workers.

It would be the first increase in the minimum standard since the 1970s.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said Australian workers on average did four-and-a-half weeks of unpaid work each year, with the amount even higher for younger workers.

"Getting back one of these weeks is fair and reasonable," she said.

"It will mean a better rested and happier workforce."

Increasing annual leave by one week would add just two per cent to employment costs and would be offset by a reduction in employee turnover and time lost to injury and stress, Ms McManus claimed.

An extra week of leave would help address the 10 per cent gap that has grown between productivity improvements and real wage growth since the turn of the millennium, she said.

But Business Council chief executive Bran Black said the proposal would do nothing to address Australia's main challenges of weak productivity growth, rising inflation and falling living standards.

Any additional mandated cost on businesses would make Australia a less attractive place to invest and create jobs, which would undermine the underlying drivers of wage growth, such as productivity.

"Businesses and their employees should determine additional leave entitlements at the workplace level because every workplace and industry is different," Mr Black said.

"We support flexible working arrangements and entitlements, but a one-size-fits-all government mandate is the wrong approach."

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said increasing leave entitlements was not something the government had been considering.

The ACTU is mounting the push as a parliamentary inquiry into the National Employment Standards, initiated by Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth, gets under way.

If the push is successful, Australia would join Austria, France, Spain, Denmark, Norway and Sweden in requiring employers to provide at least five weeks' annual leave for workers.