Paying for four hours on short shifts
Why a South African worker sent home after less than four hours must still be paid for four, and how to show and process that pay correctly.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in South Africa
A quiet Tuesday lunch service, a delivery that never arrives, rain that stops work on site. The manager sends two casual workers home after an hour and a half, and at the end of the week their pay reflects exactly that: ninety minutes.
In South Africa that is usually an underpayment. The minimum wage rules include a floor on how little a worker can be paid for a day on which they work at all. This article explains the four-hour rule, how it fits with hourly pay, what the payslip should show, and how to handle it in a weekly payroll before the run is approved.
The four-hour rule
The Department of Employment and Labour says a worker who works for less than four hours on any day must be paid for four hours of work that day. The rule appears in the department's flyer on the National Minimum Wage applicable from 1 March 2026.
Three features of the rule are worth spelling out.
- It applies per day. The test is each day the worker works, not the week. A worker with several short days in a week is owed the minimum for each of them.
- It is about pay, not work. The employer does not have to find four hours of work. It has to pay for four hours.
- The flyer gives no reasons that change the answer. Whether the shift was cut short by the weather, a quiet trading day or a scheduling mistake, the rule as the department states it is that the worker who came in and worked is paid for four hours.
The department's National Minimum Wage flyer for 2026 sets out the four-hour rule alongside the hourly rate and its daily, weekly and monthly equivalents, and it is short enough to pin up in the office where rosters are made.
How it works with hourly pay
The four-hour rule sits on top of the hourly minimum. The department says all workers, including farm and domestic workers, must earn at least R30,23 per hour under the National Minimum Wage applicable from 1 March 2026. The same flyer works the rate out as R241,84 for an 8-hour day, R1 209,20 for a 40-hour week and R5 239,46 a month, using 4,333 weeks (about four and a third weeks) to the month. It adds that wage calculations exclude benefits, allowances and tips. These are the figures at the time of writing; they change when a new minimum wage is published.
Putting the two together, in words: a worker paid by the hour who works less than four hours on a day is paid for four hours, and the pay for those hours must be at least the hourly minimum. The four-hour rule never lets an employer pay less than the hourly minimum; it only raises the floor on short days.
What the rule does not do is let tips or allowances fill the gap. Because the department's calculation excludes benefits, allowances and tips, a waiter who earned well in tips during a short lunch shift is still owed four hours of wages.
For the full picture of the 2026 rate and who it covers, see the national minimum wage from 1 March 2026.
Show the hours on the payslip
When a worker is paid for more hours than they worked, the payslip should make the reason visible. The Department of Labour's guide to pay slips says that, where relevant to the calculation of pay, a pay slip must also show pay and overtime rates, ordinary and overtime hours worked, and hours worked on a Sunday or public holiday.
For hourly workers the hours and the rate are always relevant, so put them on the slip. Where a day has been paid up to four hours, a clear description of the extra paid time helps the worker see that they were paid correctly, and helps you if the pay is ever questioned.
Short-shift pay in a weekly payroll
Casual and shift workers are often paid weekly, which means the four-hour check has to happen every week, not once a month. In Achekam, pay runs can be monthly, fortnightly or weekly, with each period's overtime, commission, allowances, reimbursements and unpaid leave entered as variable inputs. Each run works out gross pay, PAYE, UIF and SDL per employee.
How the extra paid time is entered and described is a decision to agree with your accountant, so that it is shown clearly on the payslip and taxed like the rest of the worker's wages. What matters is that the person preparing the run checks the roster for short days before the run goes forward, rather than relying on the clock-in totals alone.
A short weekly checklist for whoever prepares the run:
- From the roster or time sheets, list every day on which each worker worked less than four hours.
- Confirm the worker actually came in and worked that day, rather than being told not to come.
- Make sure each such day is paid for at least four hours.
- Check that no worker's effective hourly pay falls below the minimum wage once unpaid time is taken off.
- Look at each worker's calculated gross pay against their hours and rate before sending the run for approval.
The hospitality version of this routine, with its rosters and casual staff, is covered in more detail in weekly payroll for casual hospitality staff.
Check before approval, not after
In Achekam a run can be recalculated until it is approved. After approval it is corrected only by a correction run, and its variable inputs are frozen. That makes the moment before approval the right time to catch a missed short day: fixing it then means changing the inputs and recalculating, while fixing it later means a separate correction run.
The approver can help. Before approving a weekly run, they can ask the preparer one question: were there any short days this week, and were they paid for four hours?
Make the rule part of the roster
The simplest protection is upstream. When a manager decides to send someone home early, the four-hour rule should already be in mind, and the roster or time sheet should record that the worker came in and worked. Then the payroll check each week is a confirmation, not a reconstruction, and nobody is paid for ninety minutes when the law says four hours.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
