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Payroll Team Update

Minimum wage to increase

The minimum wage for adults and employees that have completed the Starting-Out wage will go up 50c to $14.25 an hour from 1 April this year.

The Starting-Out and training minimum wages will increase from $11 an hour to $11.40 an hour, which is 80% of the adult minimum wage.

The Start-Out wage is focused on:
16 and 17 year olds starting out in the workforce
18 and 19 year olds who have been on a benefit for six months or more;
16 to 19 year olds in training in a recognised industry-training course involving at least 40 credits a year.

The training minimum wage applies to employees aged 20 years or over who are doing recognised industry training involving at least 60 credits a year in order to become qualified.

If you are unsure how much you should be paying your employees you can contact the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Contact Centre on 0800 20 90 20

ACC earner levy DECREASE effective 1 April 2014

The government has confirmed the earner levy for the 2014-15 period effective 1st April 2014. The earners' levy is set at $1.45 (GST-inclusive) per $100 liable earnings, down from $1.70 the previous year.

The earner levy threshold will increase from $116,089 to $118,191.
If your employees are on AUTOMATIC PAYMENTS please review these for the first pay after 1st April and adjust appropriately.

If you don’t use payroll software we would recommend that they check out the IRD calculators on their website http://www.ird.govt.nz/calculators/keyword/paye/

Employee entitlement for Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is not classed as a public holiday under the Holidays Act 2003. There are restrictions on certain types of shops opening on that day but it is not a public holiday under the Holidays Act 2003.

Therefore, if an employee worked on Easter Sunday, then payment for that day would be at the ordinary rate of pay unless it was otherwise negotiated between the employer and the employee. If an employee did not work on that day due to the shop being closed as a part of its restrictions under the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990, and Sunday is the employee’s normal day of work, then payment for that day would be a contractual matter between the employee and employer (i.e. see the employee’s employment agreement).

For further information on public holidays please refer to http://www.dol.govt.nz/er/holidaysandleave/publicholidays/index.asp