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Key facts

  • 54% of non-casual employees across the overall public sector workforce took 5 days or less of personal leave
  • 7% of non-casual employees across the overall public sector workforce took more than 20 days of personal leave, which made up 34% of all leave taken
  • 8.7 days per employee is the average time taken as personal leave across the overall public sector workforce
  • personal leave usage fell for all industries.

Personal leave

We define personal leave as paid sick or carer’s leave.

The average time taken by non-casual employees for personal leave, such as sick and carer’s leave, is a standard workforce measure.

We use it in the public sector to report on time lost to unscheduled absences.

Average personal leave taken per year, by industry

Personal leave usage fell across the public sector.

An average of 8.7 personal leave days were taken by each non-casual employee from July 2020 to June 2021.

Number of personal leave days taken per year

From July 2020 to June 2021, 7% of non-casual employees took more than 20 days of personal leave.

This is consistent with past years, including the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Distribution of the total number of personal leave days taken per year

From July 2020 to June 2021, the non-casual employees who took more than 20 days of personal leave account for 34% of all personal leave taken.

This is consistent with past years, including the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.


Data set

This data set covers June 2015 to June 2021.

We source this data from our annual workforce and executive data collections that cover over 1,800 Victorian public sector employers.

Personal leave use

This file has Victorian public sector personal leave usage for non-casual employees over the past 5 financial years by industry group.

The following measures are shown:

  • annual personal leave usage as days per full-time equivalent employee
  • volume of personal leave usage each year by frequency.

Download personal leave use data set (XLSX, 89kb)