Almost one in six employers found to have paid staff less than the minimum wage did so because they did not pay the correct rate to apprentices, a major study has revealed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The research, published by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), shows that a significant number of businesses are still falling foul of minimum wage rules.<\/p>\n
According to the report, 208 businesses \u2013 including large, national firms and independent high street stores \u2013 were found to have paid less than the legal minimum wage.<\/p>\n
In total, 12,000 workers were paid less than the legal rate for their age, meaning they lost out on more than \u00a31.2 million in wages.<\/p>\n
The number one reason for underpayment was improper deductions \u2013 such as for uniform \u2013 that reduced the employee\u2019s hourly pay below the legal minimum rate, cited in over a third (37 per cent of cases).<\/p>\n
This was followed by unpaid working time, such as mandatory training, trial shifts or travel time (29 per cent), failing to pay the correct rate to apprentices (16 per cent), and not increasing pay in line with mandatory annual increases (11 per cent).<\/p>\n
Employers who fail to pay the correct rate may be fined up to 200 per cent of the wages owed and be publicly \u201cnamed and shamed\u201d.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the figures, Bryan Sanderson, Chair of the Low Pay Commission, said: \u201cThe minimum wage is a success story welcomed by employees and employers alike, but it only works if everyone without exception obeys the law. We hope this latest naming round can continue to raise awareness of the most common mistakes businesses make and help protect low-paid workers from unfair treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minister for Labour Markets Paul Scully added: \u201cWith Christmas fast approaching, it\u2019s more important than ever that cash is not withheld from the pockets of workers. So don\u2019t be a scrooge \u2013 pay your staff properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The National Living Wage increased by 6.6 per cent to \u00a39.50 per hour in April this year \u2013 the largest annual increase since 2016.<\/p>\n
For help and advice with related matters, please get in touch with our team today.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Almost one in six employers found to have paid staff less than the minimum wage did so because they did not pay the correct rate to apprentices, a major study has revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,31,49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4462,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions\/4462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}