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Permanent relocation to Australia

Hi All,

One of our employees recently returned from a short secondment in our Australian office and as things sometimes go, he would now like to relocate there permanently. The company is open to that suggestion and would be keen on supporting the employee.

As well as needing appropriate advice re immigration/visa, for which we'd need to seek appropriate advice, from an employment law perspective and because this is a permanent move, I would like to suggest that this employee also transfers his employment to our Australian company and signs a new contract. Can we do that? In that case, would the employee be entitled to retain their continuous service or any other benefits as a UK employee?

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  • If it is a permanent move then yes they should be contracted to your Australian entity and also be subject to Australian employment law (tricky!!) together with statutory rights.

    No issue with continuous employment and assuming your Australian company is part of the same group then it is group employment that would be continuous and the move would in reality be an intra-group transfer.

    In terms of benefits, what do you offer to your employees in Australia? Personal Carers Leave, Pension and fringe benefits tax for example are different and I would advise they transfer with local benefits rather than retaining their UK package.
  • We have done this the other way around a few times now. Australia to UK.

    For permanent moves it will have to be a new contract and you could just put this in writing with a relocation agreement.

    Will you be supporting with the relocation? So paying for the move for example?
    We handle it slightly different if someone wishes to relocate but it is not initiated by the company but approved and those that we want to relocate. So were it would be a redundancy if they would not move as the role gets moved. Just something to think about and be clear about.

    I'm thinking of themes that came up for us:
    Statutory rights can be quite different especially with annual leave and pension. So look into those.

    All other things will be linked with visa and immigration so check those with your immigration lawyer.

  • Hi Juraj

    You can and should transfer to an Australian contract and benefits for an employee instigated permanent transfer, it's far cleaner (you don't want to create legal liability in two countries which can occur with a halfway approach). As an aside it may not be possible to keep them in UK based benefit schemes in some instances, even if you wanted to.

    With regards to continuous service, one point to check with any Australian employment lawyers is what happens with Long Service Leave for someone in this scenario. This is a rather unusual benefit which varies from state to state in Australia, awarded after between 7-10 years service, and can be between 6-13 weeks (and continues to accrue after 10 years service), so worth checking

    Joe