Source: Unite Union New Zealand
This should be the higher of the normal pay if you worked just your contracted hours or the average weekly pay over the 4 weeks before the lockdown began.
Contracted hours are the minimum hours your employer has to give you each week – this should be written in your employment agreement of letter of appointment.
This pay should be before tax and deductions. That is, your gross pay.
If you don’t have regular hours specified in your employment agreement, you should use an average calculation to work out how much you usually get paid.
The period of time covered by the average should be a fair representation of how much you usually get paid. We typically suggest calculating average pay over the 4 weeks before lockdown began.
Some employers reduced hours during the period before lockdown. If this happened to you, the period in which your hours hours were reduced shouldn’t reduce your regular income. In this case it may be more appropriate to ignore the pay periods immediately before lockdown.
Your employer may be calculating an average over a different period. If you’re unsure you should ask them, and if you believe the period used is unfair you should ask them to use a different one.
