If a restaurant employee aged 18 or over walks out without working their notice, the Restaurant Industry Award lets you deduct no more than one week's wages, whatever the notice they owed.
Skai Solutions builds phone agents for Australian and New Zealand venues, so we see what a short week does to a venue's bookings. This page sets out the deduction right in the award, who it does not apply to, and what it costs to cover the shift four different ways.
Start with the wages, because that is the only part you can put a defensible number on. Our own restaurant staff turnover page prices the floor of replacing one front of house casual at A$990.04, built from eight hours of a Level 5 supervisor at the A$39.13 casual rate (A$313.04) plus twenty unproductive paid hours for a Level 2 casual at A$33.85 (A$677.00). That is wages only. It excludes advertising, your own time, trial shifts and the trade you lose while the section is short.
Now hold that against the remedy the award gives you, which is capped at one week's wages. At Level 2 a full time week is A$1,029.10 and at Level 5 it is A$1,189.40, both from the award rate tables in force from 1 July 2026. So the most the award lets you recover is roughly what it costs you in wages to find the replacement, and nothing at all for the Friday you traded short. That is the honest shape of this problem. The law gives you a partial wage offset, not compensation.
Which is why the useful part of this page is not the deduction. It is the four ways to cover the shift.
Under clause 35.1(b) of the Restaurant Industry Award it is a ladder by length of service, and the award text sets it out in Table 9.
| Continuous service | Notice the employee must give |
|---|---|
| Not more than 1 year | 1 week |
| More than 1 year but not more than 3 years | 2 weeks |
| More than 3 years but not more than 5 years | 3 weeks |
| More than 5 years | 4 weeks |
Two things in that table surprise operators. First, the award itself notes that an employee's notice is the same as an employer's except that the employee never owes the extra week an employer owes an older worker. The employee ladder has no age step in it. Second, clause 35.1(a) excludes the employees named in sections 123(1) and 123(3) of the Fair Work Act, which is where casuals sit. A casual who stops turning up has not breached a notice period, because they never had one. In an industry where most of the roster is casual, that single line removes the deduction question from the majority of walkouts before you start.
Sometimes, and the conditions are strict. Clause 35.1(d) says that where an employee who is at least 18 years old does not give the notice required by Table 9, the employer may deduct from wages due under the award an amount that is no more than one week's wages. Note what that cap does. A five year employee owes you four weeks and you may still only deduct one.
Three limits sit on top of it, and each one is a line in the award rather than an interpretation:
Under 18, there is no deduction available at all. And if the person is a casual, there is no notice obligation to breach in the first place.
One more asymmetry worth knowing because it reads the other way round: clause 35.2 gives an employee up to one day off on full pay to look for work, but only where you gave the notice. It does not apply when they resign.
This is where the money actually is. Ordered by what it costs you, not by what is easiest to say yes to.
This page is about somebody who told you they were going. If instead they stopped arriving and stopped replying, the one week deduction in clause 35.1(d) is not the tool for it: our page on an employee not showing up for work explains why ending the job at that point is a dismissal.
Then the answer is to stop losing the trade you still have, and that is a different problem from staffing. A venue running a section short does not usually lose money because the food took longer. It loses money because the phone rang eleven times during service and nobody could reach it, so the bookings that would have filled next Tuesday went somewhere else. That is the one part of a short week you can fix without hiring anybody.
Be honest about the order, though. If your roster goes out on a Saturday for a Monday, buy roster discipline before you buy anything else. The award gives your staff seven days notice of a change and, under clause 15A, a right to disconnect outside their hours, so the universal industry fix of ringing four people at 4pm is something they can lawfully ignore.
It makes it measurably worse, and it is the most ignored cost in the whole episode. Skai Solutions answers every call on the first ring, takes the booking, and sends it through so the section that is short is not also the section that lost next week's covers. If your phone mostly carries enquiries rather than bookings, a basic message taking plan is the right buy and it is not us. If it carries bookings during service, read what an AI receptionist for restaurants actually does and judge it against the A$990.04 above.
Setup takes five days.
Can I refuse to pay someone who quit without notice?
No. You may deduct no more than one week's wages under clause 35.1(d) of the Restaurant Industry Award, and only from wages due under the award. Accrued annual leave and National Employment Standards payments cannot be withheld, and the deduction must not be unreasonable.
Does a casual have to give notice in a restaurant?
No. Clause 35.1 excludes the employees named in sections 123(1) and 123(3) of the Fair Work Act, which is where casuals sit, so a casual who stops accepting shifts has not breached a notice period.
How much notice does a chef with four years service have to give?
Three weeks, under Table 9 of the Restaurant Industry Award, because the service is more than three years and not more than five. If they give none, the deduction is still capped at one week's wages.
Can I deduct pay from a 17 year old who walked out?
No. Clause 35.1(d) applies only to an employee who is at least 18 years old.
What if I told them not to come back for their last week?
Then no deduction can be made. Clause 35.1(e) removes the right where the employer has agreed to a shorter notice period, and letting someone go early is that agreement.
When does final pay have to be paid?
The award and the Fair Work Ombudsman treat final pay as due promptly after employment ends; check the current Fair Work guidance for your situation rather than relying on a general figure.