Adding an afternoon or night shift: what it does to your labour hire rate

When a warehouse outgrows its day shift, the first quote for an afternoon or night crew often comes as a surprise. The people and the tasks are the same, but the hourly figure is higher, and higher again once a Saturday is involved.

Those increases come from three separate rules in the award: shift loadings, overtime and weekend penalties. Each has its own trigger, and which one applies depends mostly on how the roster is set up. This article covers how they work in principle and what they do to a labour hire rate.

Which award usually applies

For most warehouse and distribution work, the relevant award is the Storage Services and Wholesale Award 2020. It expressly covers on-hire employers: a labour hire provider supplying workers into a storage or wholesale business is covered by it for those workers, in the classifications the award sets out.

So the award follows the work. If we place a storeworker in your distribution centre, we pay them under that award even though we are the employer and you are the host.

Not every site with racking is under this award, though. A manufacturer's on-site store or a transport depot can fall under a different one, and a site with an enterprise agreement brings same job, same pay into the picture. Everything below describes the Storage Services award. Confirm which instrument covers your site before relying on the numbers.

What makes a shift an afternoon or night shift

The award defines shifts mainly by when they finish:

• An afternoon shift finishes after 6.00 pm and at or before midnight.
• A night shift finishes after midnight and at or before 8.30 am.
• An early morning shift starts between 2.00 am and 7.00 am.

Each carries a loading on the minimum hourly rate, paid for the ordinary hours of that shift. For full-time and part-time employees, an early morning shift is paid at 112.5%, an afternoon shift at 115% and a night shift at 130%.

Casuals receive their 25% casual loading as well. The Fair Work Ombudsman's pay guide for this award, effective 1 July 2026, shows how that adds up. The award minimum for an adult casual Storeworker grade 1 on commencement is $33.85 an hour for ordinary day hours, $37.91 on afternoon shift and $41.97 on night shift. Those are published award minimum pay rates before any on-costs. They are not charge rates.

When it is overtime instead

Under the award, overtime is payable for all time worked in excess of or outside ordinary hours. For day workers, ordinary hours are worked between 7.00 am and 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday, up to 38 hours a week averaged over four weeks. A day can run to ten ordinary hours by agreement.

Overtime is paid at 150% of the minimum hourly rate for the first two hours and 200% after that for full-time and part-time employees. For casuals it is 175% and then 225%. Each day or shift stands alone when overtime is calculated.

That gives you two quite different ways to cover the same evening hours:

• Stretch the day shift. If your day crew stays on past the end of its ordinary hours, the extra time is overtime, paid at the rates above.
• Roster a real afternoon shift. A separate crew whose ordinary hours finish at, say, 10.00 pm is on afternoon shift and is paid the afternoon loading for those hours.

For a few late finishes a month, overtime is usually the simpler answer. Once the evening work becomes regular, a properly rostered second shift generally costs less per hour and puts less strain on the crew.

Conditions that come with running shifts

The award attaches some rules to shiftwork that affect how quickly you can set one up.

• Day workers can't simply be moved. Employees engaged as day shift employees must not be required to work afternoon shift without their specific agreement.
• Rosters need notice. Shifts are rostered at least 48 hours in advance, showing start and finish times. They can be changed by agreement, or by the employer on 24 hours' notice when circumstances outside the employer's control require it.
• The ten-hour break. Overtime should be arranged so employees have at least ten consecutive hours off between the work of successive days. If someone is told to come back without that break, they are paid at 200% (225% for casuals) until they are released.

The ten-hour rule tends to catch sites that run an occasional late finish followed by a normal early start. Someone still has to manage that crew's fatigue as well, and that responsibility sits with you as much as with us. We covered it in host employer WHS duties.

Weekends and public holidays

Weekend work has its own penalties. Ordinary time on a Saturday is paid at 150% of the minimum hourly rate, all time on a Sunday at 200%, and work on a public holiday at 250%. Casual rates are higher again; the pay guide lists each one by classification.

Two details matter when you plan a roster:

• Minimum payments on weekend overtime. An employee required to work overtime on a Saturday must get at least three hours' work or pay, and on a Sunday four hours, unless the overtime runs straight on from ordinary hours. Calling people in for a single hour on a Sunday is poor value.
• Shifts that cross midnight. For these calculations the award treats Saturday as midnight Friday to midnight Saturday, and Sunday as midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday. A Friday night shift therefore runs into Saturday. Exactly how shift loadings and weekend penalties apply to a roster like that depends on the detail, so it is worth working through the actual roster against the award and not relying on a rule of thumb.

Why the charge rate moves with it

A labour hire charge rate is built on the worker's pay. Super, workers' compensation and payroll tax are all calculated as a percentage of wages, so when the pay for an hour rises because of a loading or penalty, those on-costs rise too. We've set out that stack in what casual, labour hire and permanent staff really cost, and explained how a change in the base rate flows through it in our 2026 wage increase article, so we won't repeat it here.

For shifts, the practical result is that one rate will not cover a whole roster. A sound quote for a multi-shift operation has separate lines for day, afternoon, night, overtime, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays.

Be cautious about a single blended rate for all hours. It can be fine if it was built on your real mix of hours and gets reviewed when that mix changes. If it isn't clear what mix it assumes, ask, because a blended figure can drift away from what the award requires for each hour worked.

What to tell us before adding a shift

A few details let us price a new shift properly the first time:

• the start and finish times of each shift, since the finish time decides which loading applies
• whether the evening hours will be a separate crew or the day crew staying back
• which days the shift runs, including any that cross into a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday
• how often you expect overtime on top, and how much notice you can give
• which award or agreement covers your own employees doing the same work

If you are planning this for peak, our peak season workforce plan covers the timing. For rates on a specific roster, send the shift pattern through our contact page and we'll come back with each rate line set out. You can also see how we staff warehouse and distribution sites.

Award coverage and rates turn on the specific instrument, classification and roster, so check your own situation with the Fair Work Ombudsman or a qualified adviser.