Are unpaid trial shifts legal in Australia for working holiday makers?

Working holiday makers are the most common target of illegal unpaid trial shifts, particularly in hospitality and retail. The trial shift is positioned as a hiring requirement, but in practice it is a free day of work for the employer.

What does a legal trial actually look like?

A genuinely legal unpaid trial is:

• Short: usually no more than 30 to 60 minutes
• Supervised: an actual assessment of skills, not unsupervised work
• Not productive: the trial activity does not directly produce work output for paying customers
• Necessary to assess the skill: the employer needs to see you perform a specific skill that cannot be assessed at interview

Examples that may be legal:

• Demonstrating a particular knife technique under a chef's supervision for 30 minutes
• Performing a brief role-play of a customer interaction at an interview
• Completing a 20-minute typing test for an admin role

What is not legal:

• A full shift in a busy cafe making and serving coffees
• An eight-hour day on a farm picking produce
• An entire shift on a bar with the worker actually serving customers
• "Working a few hours to see if you fit in"

If you are doing real productive work, you must be paid.

What does the Fair Work Ombudsman say?

The Fair Work Ombudsman has issued clear guidance that unpaid work trials longer than a brief skills demonstration are unlawful. The Ombudsman has taken action against numerous employers in hospitality, retail, and farm work for using unpaid trials to extract free labour. Penalties for the employer can include back-payment of all wages owed plus penalties of up to several thousand dollars per breach.

How much should you be paid for a trial?

If a trial shift was unlawfully unpaid, you are owed wages at the relevant minimum rate for the hours worked. For most working holiday maker jobs:

• The minimum wage (currently $24.95 per hour as of July 2025)
• Or the higher award rate for the industry (hospitality, retail, agriculture all have their own awards)
• Plus casual loading (usually 25%) if you were a casual worker
• Plus penalty rates if the trial was on a weekend, evening, or public holiday

For a full eight-hour unpaid trial on a Saturday in hospitality, the wages owed can easily be over $250 once casual loading and penalty rates are applied. See our article on penalty rates for the detail.

What if you were not hired after the trial?

The legal position is the same whether or not you were offered the job. The work was performed; the wages are owed. The Fair Work Ombudsman has recovered wages for many workers who completed unpaid trials and were not subsequently hired, on the basis that the trial itself constituted work for which payment was due.

How do you recover unpaid trial wages?

The steps are:

1. Request payment in writing: email the employer with the date, hours worked, and the amount owed
2. Calculate the correct amount: using minimum wage or the award rate plus loadings
3. Lodge a complaint with the Fair Work Ombudsman if the employer refuses
4. Make sure super was also accounted for: if you were paid, super should have been paid too

The Fair Work Ombudsman can investigate, issue compliance notices, and pursue penalties against the employer. The process is free.

How do you spot the pattern?

Employers who use unpaid trials often run similar patterns across multiple workers:

• "Come in for a trial shift on Saturday and we'll let you know"
• "Just work tonight and see if you fit in"
• "It's standard in hospitality, everyone does a trial"
• "We don't pay for trials but you'll get tips"

None of these statements change the legal position. If you are doing productive work, you must be paid.

How does our service support trial shift recovery?

While Fair Work is the primary channel for recovering unpaid trial wages, the wages owed often connect to wider issues:

• Tax should have been withheld and a Tax File Number Declaration form completed (see our article on tax file number declaration form)
• Super should have been paid on the wages
• The work should have been reported to the ATO under Single Touch Payroll

When you lodge your tax return through our service, we identify any work that should have been reported to the ATO but was not, and any related super gaps. Get in touch with our team if you have completed unpaid trial shifts and want to understand your options.