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Agreement offered to all workers

YOU will be offered an employment agreement when you take a job in New Zealand. If it's an individual one it's written just for you and your job.

If it's a collective one, other employees have the same agreement as yours. There are things that employers have to put into agreements. Your employment agreement will include provision for:

• annual leave
• sick leave
• wages or salary
• duties and responsibilities
• hours of work.

And it will be written in plain English You can find out more about employment agreements and rates of pay in the Work section of our Living in New Zealand guide or the Employment Relations Service of the Department of Labour.

ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation)

Everyone in New Zealand is covered by a Government-run accident compensation scheme. It covers all citizens, residents and temporary visitors. But in return you don't have the right to take legal action for personal injury.

It means that if you suffer an injury that is caused by an accident, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) will pay a large part of your medical bills. The scheme covers all accidental injuries, no matter how they happened.

Everyone who is self-employed or who employs other people has to pay a levy or fee to ACC. The ACC website has all the information you need and your employer can tell you about it too.

PAYE (employee income tax)

If you're employed by someone else, your income tax is taken directly from your pay. It's called PAYE, which means "pay as you earn". Your employer takes income tax directly from your salary or wage payments.

You can find out more about personal income tax from the Inland Revenue Department or read the tax section in the Government section of our Living in New Zealand guide.

OSH (Occupational Safety and Health)

New Zealand tries to ensure that workplaces are safe and healthy. Nobody wants an injury or a death to happen at work. The Health and Safety in Employment Act was passed in 1992 and an amendment in 2002.

Its main purpose is to prevent injury or harm to people at work. It's about making work activities safe and healthy for everyone.

Employers have the main responsibility for this. They work with their staff to reduce danger or risk as much as possible. The Occupational Safety and Health Service helps with advice and information.

EEO (Equal Employment Opportunities)

New Zealand employment law prohibits discrimination in the work place. EEO means making sure that nobody is discriminated against when they apply for a job.

People with disabilities, women with young children, lesbians and gay men, people from different ethnic groups, older people - everybody should be treated equally to find the best person for the job.

Family balance

We have provisions for paid parental leave and many employees return to work part-time while their children are young. The increasing number of part-time jobs makes this easier than in the past.

Some employers have childcare facilities available and others run special programmes in the holidays for school-age children.