A person is dismissed if the person’s employment with his or her employer has been terminated on the employer’s initiative. A person is also considered to have been dismissed if the person has resigned from his or her employment, but was forced to do so because of conduct, or a course of conduct, engaged in by his or her employer.

A person is not considered to have been dismissed if they were employed under a contract for a specified period of time, to complete a specified task or for the duration of a specified season, and the employment was terminated at the end of the period, task or season.

However, the Fair Work Act 2009 states that if a person was on a contract and the substantial purpose of the contract was to avoid obligations to not unfairly dismiss the employee then the employee is not precluded from making an unfair dismissal application.

An employee is not considered to be dismissed if they were on a training arrangement and the employment terminated at the end of the training arrangement.

A person is also not dismissed if they have been demoted unless the demotion involves a significant reduction in remuneration or duties.