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Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987

Rights and obligations after commencement of parental leave

43: Continuity of employment

You could also call this:

“Your job is protected when you take parental leave and return to the same employer”

If you take parental leave and then go back to work for the same employer, your job is protected in certain ways. Your time away doesn’t count as a break in your service. This means you keep any benefits that depend on working without breaks.

When you return to work, the time you were on parental leave, and any time you were waiting to get your job back, both count as time worked. This applies to most of your employment rights. It also counts towards your time in any work pension plan you’re part of.

There are two exceptions to these rules. One is about your pay, which is explained in another part of the law called section 42. The other is about how your work pension is calculated, which is explained in section 44.

Remember, these rules only apply if you go back to the same employer you worked for before your parental leave.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM121003.

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42: Employer's obligations in respect of remuneration and holiday pay, or

“Your pay and holiday pay when you take time off to have a baby”

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44: Contributions to superannuation schemes, or

“Rules about paying into your retirement savings while on parental leave”

Part 5 Rights and obligations after commencement of parental leave

43Continuity of employment

  1. Where an employee resumes service with the same employer at the end of a period of parental leave or while the employee is entitled, following parental leave, to preference in obtaining employment with the employee's employer—

  2. the employee's service, for the purpose of any rights and benefits that are conditional on unbroken service, shall not be broken—
    1. by the taking of parental leave; or
      1. by the employee being without a position in the employer's service during part of the period of preference; or
        1. by both; and
        2. any period during which the employee was on parental leave and any period during which the employee was entitled, following parental leave, to preference in obtaining employment with the employer shall count,—
          1. subject to section 42, as time served under the employee's employment agreement; and
            1. subject to section 44, as service for the purpose of any superannuation scheme to which the employee belongs in the employee's capacity as an employee of the employer.

            Compare
            • 1980 No 162 s 22
            Notes
            • Section 43(b)(i): amended, on , by section 22 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave) Amendment Act 2002 (2002 No 7).