Current Sick Leave Entitlements 'Manifestly Unfair' - Business Owner

Tuesday, 17 June 2025, 8:27 pm
Article: RNZ

Checkpoint

An Auckland business owner has described current sick leave entitlements 'manifestly unfair', adding it is a significant burden in tough economic times.

In 2021 minimum paid sick leave for workers went from five to 10 days regardless of how often a person works.

The government has confirmed it is changing the law to a pro-rata system, or proportional leave, where sick day allowances will be different for part and full-time workers depending on how many hours or days they work.

The exact detail is yet to be decided.

Kathy Aspden, who owns an entertainment business told Checkpoint her sick leave costs have increased 400 percent since the allowance doubled.

"In 2019 we had people taking 64 sick days off and that was basically about. 0.9 percent of our total wage bill. In 2025, we had 278.5 sick days and that was 2.4 percent of our total wage bill. Our costs went from $10,000 to $50,000," she said.

"We have found that since the sick leave, entitlement has increased the number of people, the actual sick leave that's being used has increased as well."

Aspden said she supports the government push to switch to a proportional system.

"We have a lot of part time staff and having a person who works for us one day a week, being entitled to 10 days sick leave every year just doesn't feel proportionate. It basically means that they can have 20 percent of the year off sick, which doesn't happen very often to be honest. But every now and then it does get abused."

Aspden's company currently has around 50 part-time workers on its books, some working over 30 hours, others just one or two days a week. She said that due to the nature of the service industry, when one worker was off, another had to be brought in to cover, contributing to the company's costs.

"All businesses are doing it really tough at the moment and especially hospitality and entertainment businesses. We've been in the business for over 30 years now and I can't remember a time when it's been so difficult for businesses," she said.

"All of these additional costs that we're having to fund really don't help us at all."

However, she said the reason sick leave taken by staff had increased so dramatically was hard to pinpoint.

"Since Covid people are more conscious of taking time off if they are sick and we fully encourage that the last thing we want is someone sick coming into work and making the rest of our team sick."

"At the same time, we do have some people who are abusing it and just not really treating us fairly."

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Checkpoint yesterday she had been looking at sick leave changes alongside ongoing work to replace the Holidays Act.

She did not disclose whether the changes would be based on the days or hours people were working. But said she believed someone who worked "what we expect to be a full week", would have the full entitlement, including someone who worked 40 hours in four days.

Van Velden didn't give any evidence on how much sick leave part-timers were currently taking.

"That's not the reason behind doing this change," she said.

"It's to do with whether it's right, and is it right that someone who is working one day a week is entitled to the same sick leave allocation as someone who works five days a week - that's what we are basing this policy on, whether it's right."

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