The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy named 360 businesses who underpaid 15,520 workers a total of £995,233, with employers in the hairdressing, hospitality and retail sectors the most prolific offenders.
As well as recovering arrears for some of the UK’s lowest paid workers, HMRC issued penalties worth around £800,000.
For the first time, the naming list includes employers who failed to pay eligible workers at least the new National Living Wage rate, which is currently £7.20 for workers aged 25 and over.
Business Minister Margot James said: Every worker in the UK is entitled to at least the national minimum or living wage and this government will ensure they get it.
That is why we have named and shamed more than 350 employers who failed to pay the legal minimum, sending the clear message to employers that minimum wage abuses will not go unpunished.
Excuses for underpaying workers included using tips to top up pay, docking workers’ wages to pay for their Christmas party and making staff pay for their own uniforms out of their salary.
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said: The National Living and Minimum Wage, which every worker is entitled to, is an essential part of building the higher wage, lower welfare, lower tax society that the UK needs.
Thanks to government investigations more than 15 and a half thousand of the UK’s lowest paid workers are to be back paid as we continue to build a Northern Ireland, and wider United Kingdom, that works for everyone.
The Government is committed to ensuring all employers are compliant with minimum wage legislation and the effective enforcement of it:
Over the next year the Government will spend a record £25.3 million on minimum wage enforcement in January, the Government appointed Sir David Metcalf as the first ever Director of Labour Market Enforcement to oversee a crackdown on workplace exploitation in November last year, labour market enforcement undertakings and orders came into force under the Immigration Act which can ultimately lead to criminal prosecutions and prison sentences of up to two years for employers who mistreat their workers, including national minimum wage violations.
The revised BEIS scheme to name employers who break minimum wage law came into effect on 1 October 2013. The scheme is one of a range of tools at the Government’s disposal to tackle this issue. Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages to the worker at current minimum wage rates but also face financial penalties of up to 200% of arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker. In the most serious cases employers can be prosecuted.
