"This is up from 19 per cent the year before," Kelly said. "Since at least 69,000 employers used trial periods, this equates to tens of thousands of workers dismissed."
The Employers and Manufacturers Association's general manager, David Lowe, said a survey of 518 employers the association did last December found 69 per cent of the businesses were using trial periods and 35 per cent said they hired sooner. Eight per cent had created a new position because there was a trial period.
"Employers tend not to take risks on hiring people they think could present an employment problem (young people coming out of prison, people returning to work, migrants etc). Those are the people that the proponents of the 90-day trial periods are wringing their hands about. For, some the alternative is to remain unemployed."
He quoted the example of a new sales delivery position being created to try out a new geographical area that had proved a success.
"They wouldn't have created the position if they didn't have the safety net ... "
Lowe said trial periods were the norm in many countries and helped create jobs.
But the CTU says international evidence suggests trial periods can lead to more "churn" by increasing hiring and firing.
"Trial periods are no substitute for good recruitment and performance management processes. Suggesting to employers that they can skimp on these can lead to bad hiring and HR practices."
Lowe said the Holidays Act needed to be modernised to deal with variable hours of work and computerised systems that calculate pay and leave.
He said the EMA supported the section in the law that entitles employees to two consecutive weeks of leave, and cashing in one week was a matter of choice. It was also useful for sudden events such as funerals or family crises.
But Kelly said the "cashing up" of annual leave was being used primarily by workers on low incomes to supplement their inadequate take home pay in lieu of a pay increase — 46 per cent didn't get a pay rise last year.
