FTE in NZ: working out full-time equivalents from the hours staff actually work

What FTE means, and why the base changes every figure

An FTE of 1.0 is one person working a full-time week. Someone on half those hours is 0.5, and a team's FTE is the sum of everyone's. The formula is simple: hours worked in a period, divided by full-time hours for the same period.

The catch is the full-time base. Employment New Zealand says there is no legal definition of full-time, and that it generally means 30 hours or more a week. What the law does set is a ceiling: section 11B of the Minimum Wage Act 1983 says an employment agreement must fix ordinary hours at no more than 40 a week unless both sides agree to more. So most New Zealand organisations use 40 hours as their base, while others use 37.5 because of their standard day. Our article on how many hours count as full-time explains where those numbers come from.

The choice moves every figure. This is arithmetic: someone on 30 hours a week is 0.75 FTE on a 40-hour base and 0.8 on a 37.5-hour base. A team of ten people on 30 hours each is 7.5 FTE one way and 8.0 the other. Neither is wrong, but two reports on different bases cannot be compared, so write the base beside the number every time, and use the one your funder, board or survey asks for.

Contracted FTE and worked FTE are different numbers

Most FTE figures are worked out from employment agreements: each person's agreed weekly hours divided by the base. That is contracted FTE, and it is what you budget salaries from. Worked FTE comes from the hours people actually log over a period, divided by the base times the number of weeks.

The gap between them tells you something either way:

• Worked above contracted means regular extra hours. That can point to a role that needs more hours than it was given, to salaried staff whose long weeks need a minimum wage check, or to a casual whose pattern has become regular.
• Worked below contracted usually means leave, sickness, short weeks or a vacancy. Decide whether paid leave counts as hours: if you include it, you are measuring paid FTE, and if you leave it out, the hours actually at work.
• Casual staff have no contracted FTE at all, so they only appear in the worked figure, often as a large share of a small team.

Worked FTE needs a reliable total of hours by person for the period. Team timesheets from jobtracker.co.nz shows the hours your people choose to share, by person, project and task, for any period you choose, with a CSV of every entry, so a quarter's worked FTE is each person's total divided by the base times 13. It does not read anyone's pay, build rosters or run payroll, and because each person decides whether to share their hours, the figure covers the people who share. It costs $6.99 a seat a month, GST included, for at least three seats.

A worked example: seven people, one quarter

Here is a made-up team over 13 weeks, on a 40-hour base, so one FTE is 520 hours. The hours are hours at work, without leave.

The team is contracted for 3.3 FTE and worked 3.88, more than half an FTE above its agreements. Most of the difference is the two casuals, with 273 hours between them, plus Aroha's 28 hours of overtime and Chen's 18 extra hours. Ben is below his 0.8 because he was off sick for two 8-hour days, which a paid FTE figure would put back.

The same hours give different answers on other bases. On 37.5 hours, one FTE is 487.5 hours for the quarter, and 2,019 hours is 4.14 FTE. Counted the way Stats NZ counts, with Aroha and Ben as full-time and the other five as part-time at half each, the team is 4.5. That is why a figure on its own means little until you know how it was made.

Where FTE is asked for

FTE turns up wherever someone needs to compare teams of different shapes:

• Funding contracts. Funders often set staffing in FTE and ask for it in reports. The contract defines the base and whether vacancies, leave or casual hours count, so use its definition, not your own.
• Boards and budgets. Cost per FTE, revenue per FTE and the gap between budgeted and worked FTE are common measures. A worked figure each quarter shows whether a team is running above its funded hours.
• Official surveys. Stats NZ's Quarterly Employment Survey asks businesses for the number of full-time employees, those working 30 hours or more a week, and part-time employees, under 30. Its FTE measure is the total number of full-time jobs plus half the number of part-time jobs, without working proprietors. Answer a Stats NZ survey on its own definitions.

Pro-rating pay and leave for 0.6 and 0.8 FTE roles

Pay pro-rates by FTE. This is arithmetic: a role paid $70,000 at full time is $56,000 at 0.8 FTE and $42,000 at 0.6, on the same base. Every hour must still meet the minimum wage, $23.95 an hour for adults from 1 April 2026, and the employer's KiwiSaver contribution is at least 3.5% of the gross pay, whatever the FTE. Our article on part-time versus full-time pay shows what fewer hours do to take-home pay.

Leave under the Holidays Act 2003 does not simply pro-rate, because it is counted in weeks and days:

• Annual holidays are four weeks of the person's own working weeks (section 16). For someone working three days a week, that is 12 working days.
• Sick leave is 10 days a year once the person is entitled, whether they work two days a week or five (sections 63 and 65).
• Public holidays are paid when they fall on a day the person would otherwise work.

That changes on 6 August 2028, when the Employment Leave Act 2026 replaces the Holidays Act. Leave will build up for each standard hour: at least 0.0769 of an hour of annual leave and 0.0385 of an hour of sick leave (sections 24 and 73). On 24 standard hours a week, which is 0.6 FTE on a 40-hour base, that is about 96 hours of annual leave a year, four weeks of 24 hours, and about 48 hours of sick leave, with sick leave capped at 160 hours. From then on, leave will follow hours much as FTE does.

Worked FTE without the spreadsheet