A casual has stopped turning up: the seven-day contact log, and when ending it opens an unfair dismissal claim

Your Friday casual missed the 5pm start, left your 5:30pm text on read, and isn't on Saturday's group chat either. The instinct is to take them off the roster and call it abandonment. The catch: there is no abandonment clause to rely on. The Fair Work Commission deleted those clauses from modern awards in 2018, and the Hospitality Award doesn't have one.

So a casual who goes quiet hasn't quit. They stay employed until they tell you they're done or you end it. How you end it, and how long they've worked for you, decides whether a claim can follow.

The short answer: make documented, reasonable attempts to reach them over about a week, give a clear deadline in writing, then end the employment in writing and pay them out within 7 days. An unfair dismissal claim is only open to a casual who has worked for you regularly and systematically for at least 6 months, or 12 months if you have fewer than 15 employees. This is general information, not legal advice.

Why "they abandoned the job" isn't a legal shortcut

Some older awards used to say an employee absent for a set number of days without contact was taken to have abandoned their job. In [2018] FWCFB 7433 the Full Bench decided those provisions were not necessary, ordered them deleted and declined to replace them. It noted the right steps "will depend upon the precise circumstances".

The Fair Work Ombudsman's guidance follows from that: an employer should make all reasonable attempts to contact an employee who may have abandoned their job, because sometimes something has genuinely gone wrong. A hospital admission, a phone at the bottom of Bondi, a family emergency overseas. If you end things without trying, you can't show the absence was a choice.

There's a second reason to try. Under section 352 of the Fair Work Act, you must not dismiss someone because they're temporarily absent through illness or injury of a kind the regulations prescribe. That protection has no minimum employment period, so it applies to a casual in their second week. If the silence turns out to be a hospital bed, a dismissal sent on day two looks very different.

The seven-day contact log

This is the sequence we'd run for a casual who has missed a rostered shift with no word. Keep every step in one place: date, time, channel, what you sent, and whether it was read. Screenshots of the message thread are fine.

Don't run this off one missed shift you heard about secondhand. And if they reply at any point with a reason, the log stops and a normal conversation starts. Plenty of venues have a casual who called in sick badly, which is a performance chat, not a termination.

Day 1 welfare text

Hi Sam, it's Priya from The Vic. You were rostered 5pm tonight and we haven't heard from you. Just checking you're OK. Can you call or text me when you can?

Day 2 email

Subject: Your shifts at The Vic. "Hi Sam, you were rostered on Friday 30 October from 5pm and didn't attend, and we haven't been able to reach you by phone or text. We hope you're all right. Please contact me on 0400 000 000 or reply to this email so we can talk about your upcoming shifts. We've covered your next two shifts in the meantime."

Day 4 deadline letter

"Since Friday 30 October you have not attended your rostered shifts on 30 October, 31 October and 1 November, and we have tried to contact you by phone and text on 30 October and 1 November, and by email on 31 October. We need to hear from you by 5pm on Thursday 5 November. If there's a reason you've been unable to work or to contact us, please tell us, and we'll take it into account. If we don't hear from you by then, we may conclude that you don't intend to return, and treat your employment as ended."

Day 7 final letter

"We emailed you on 31 October and wrote to you on 2 November about your absence from work since 30 October, and asked you to contact us by 5pm on 5 November. We haven't heard from you. Your employment with The Vic has ended effective today, Friday 6 November. Your final pay, for all hours worked to your last shift, will be paid by 13 November. If anything here is wrong, please contact me."

Note what the letters do. They name the shifts missed, list the contact attempts, invite an explanation, and give a real deadline. That's the record you'll want if the employee resurfaces in three weeks with a story.

When a no-show can become an unfair dismissal claim

An unfair dismissal application is only open to someone who has served the minimum employment period: 6 months, or 1 year if you're a small business employer (fewer than 15 employees, counting only regular and systematic casuals). For a casual, that time only counts if the work was regular and systematic and they reasonably expected it to continue. The application must be lodged within 21 days of the dismissal.

That last row is why the contact log matters even for a three-week casual. The tenure rules close the unfair dismissal door; they don't close the general protections one.

Can you just stop rostering a casual?

Technically you can stop offering shifts, and casuals aren't owed notice of termination under the National Employment Standards (section 123 excludes them). But a regular casual who is simply dropped off the roster with no word may still argue they were dismissed. If you've decided they're finished, say so in writing. A clean end date is better for both of you than a slow fade, which is the same trap workers write about in the six-week hours log.

What the empty shifts cost while the week runs

The seven days aren't free. Here's one Level 2 casual's missed weekend at July 2026 Hospitality Award rates, before super. That's the wage bill you still need someone to work.

That's if the shifts get covered. If they don't, a busy shift run one short can cost a few hundred dollars more in slow service and lost covers, as we worked through in the real cost of a no-show. Covering it in-house can also push a part-timer into overtime. The cheapest week is one where the gaps were filled on day 1, which is an argument for building the bench before you need it.

Keep the record and fill the gap in one place

Shiftly is free rostering and award-aware timesheets for venues, with an on-demand staffing network built in: the roster that fills itself. When a casual doesn't clock on, the roster marks the shift Not worked, which gives you a dated record for the log. Messages to staff sit in the same app. When you need the shift worked tonight, you can post it to on-demand staff, available along the east coast of Australia. Award interpretation is a calculation tool: it helps you estimate pay, and you stay responsible for checking it.

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Frequently asked questions

How many days absent counts as abandonment of employment in Australia?

There's no set number under a modern award any more. The Fair Work Commission removed abandonment clauses in 2018, so you make reasonable attempts to contact the employee and then decide. Some enterprise agreements and contracts still carry a clause, so check yours.

Can you fire a casual employee for no reason?

A casual who hasn't served the minimum employment period can't bring an unfair dismissal claim, and casuals aren't owed notice under the National Employment Standards. But you still can't end their employment for a prohibited reason, such as a temporary absence through illness, a workplace complaint or discrimination, at any tenure.

Do I have to pay a casual who abandoned their job?

Yes, for all hours they worked. The Hospitality Award requires final wages and any other amounts owed to be paid no later than 7 days after employment ends.

Is there an abandonment of employment letter template from Fair Work?

The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes templates for many letters, but the four messages above are written for a venue's casual who has gone quiet. Change the names, dates and shifts, keep the deadline real, and get advice if the employee has been with you a long time or might have been unwell.