Businesses that have hired kids under 15 over the summer school holidays are being urged to review their shift rosters before the school term starts to avoid falling foul of Victoria’s child employment laws.
Under the laws, businesses with a child employment licence can hire kids under 15 for up to 6 hours a day and 30 hours a week (including rest breaks) during school holidays, but this decreases during the school term when kids can work a maximum of 3 hours a day and 12 hours per week.
Victoria’s child employment regulator, Wage Inspectorate Victoria, is encouraging businesses to review their staffing rosters to ensure they abide by the school term restrictions.
The regulator is also reminding businesses that employees under 15 cannot work past 9pm – a restriction that applies during both the school term and holidays.
Breaching Victoria’s child employment laws is a crime and may be penalised with fines of up to $200,000.
Last year, the Wage Inspectorate prosecuted 11 businesses for breaching child employment laws and issued official warnings to others.
