Previous Employer

An employer for whom you did paid work and for whom you have ceased working for in the last 12 months.


The Australian Business Number (ABN) is a single identifier for all business dealings with the tax office and for dealings with other government departments and agencies.


Please enter a phone number that can be used to contact your previous employer on.


An Employment Separation Certificate is a document that is provided by your employer upon request when you have ceased work. Employment Separation Certificates are used by us to ensure any waiting periods or non-payment periods are correctly assessed and you receive your first payment from the right date. The Employment Separation Certificate tells us if you received any redundancy or termination payment, including how much and how many days it covers, and the reason your employment ended.

If you received any leave, redundancy or termination payment from your employer then we need to take this amount in account when determining what date we will pay you from. It is important that you don't spend your redundancy or termination payment until you know how it will affect your claim. For example, a 10 week redundancy payment may result in a 10 week waiting period that will start from the date you received the redundancy payment.

If you chose to leave your job or you lost your job because of misconduct we may not pay you for eight weeks.

Your employer can get an Employment Separation Certificate on our website. If you can't get an Employment Separation Certificate from your employer, you may be able to provide us with this information in another format. For example, a letter from your employer and a copy of your payslip that shows what you were last paid, including any leave or termination payments. You will need to talk to us before you submit your claim if you cannot get an Employment Separation Certificate from your employer.


If you received leave entitlements from your last job, including annual leave, long service leave, sick leave, and maternity leave, you may have to serve an 'income maintenance period'. If you have received redundancy entitlements you may also have to serve an 'income maintenance period'. This means you may not receive a payment from the date you received any leave or redundancy entitlements up to the end of the period covered by those entitlements. It is important that you don't spend your leave or redundancy payments until you know how long your waiting period may be.

Under the Income Maintenance Period provisions, leave and time-related redundancy payments are treated as income for a period equal to that for which it was paid. For example, 2 weeks annual leave would result in a 2-week Income Maintenance Period. Any portion of the redundancy payment that is 'rolled-over' by the employer is exempt from the Income Maintenance Period.