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BBC News
5 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
NI employers named for not paying staff minimum wage
Twenty-eight businesses in Northern Ireland have been named for failing to pay their employees the minimum wage, according to the Department for Business and Trade (DBT).This comes after a significant uplift to the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage came into effect in department said 518 employers across the UK have been ordered to repay workers over £7.4 million after nearly 60,000 workers have been left out of includes 28 employers in Northern Ireland. The businesses have since paid back what they owe to their staff and faced financial penalties of up to 200% of their for Employment Rights Justin Madders said: "There is no excuse for employers to undercut their workers, and we will continue to name companies who break the law and don't pay their employees what they are owed.""This will put more money in working people's pockets, helping to boost productivity and ending low pay," he added. What are the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage? The National Living Wage went up from £11.44 an hour to £12.21. The government said the increase was worth £1,400 a year for an eligible full-time National Living Wage has applied to employees aged 21 and over since April 2024. Previously, you had to be pay rates are set by the government every year on the advice of an independent group, the Low Pay CommissionYounger employees - aged between 16 and 20 - receive the National Minimum 18, 19 and 20-year-olds, it rose from £8.60 an hour to £10 on 1 government said the increase is worth £2,500 for an eligible full-time 16 and 17-year-olds, the National Minimum Wage rose from £6.40 an hour to £7.55, an 18% separate apprentice rate, which applies to eligible people under 19 - or those over 19 in the first year of an apprenticeship increased by the same amount. The NI Businesses from the DBT 1. Property Management Services NI Limited in Belfast - 414 employees owed an average £136 per worker2. Elliot's auto engineering in North Antrim - 1 employee owed over £17,0003. Winemark in North Belfast - 186 employees owed over £844. Benedicts in south Belfast - 391 employees owed £375. Philip Russell Limited in Belfast - 111 employees owed £946. Regency Hotel in Belfast - 201 employees owed £997. Wine Inns Ltd in Belfast - 103 employees owed £908. Building Blocks Day nursery in Mid ulster - 45 employees owed £1239. City Office NI Ltd - 2 employees owed £1,80010. Whistledown Hotel in South Down - 46 employees owed £4611. RJ Ferguson in Mid Ulster - 3 employees owed £67012. CPM Electrical in Fermanagh- 4 employees owed £48413. The Village store in West Tyrone - 1 employee owed £172514. Spice restaurant in Lagan Valley - 3 employees owed £55215. R Loughlin Electrical in west Tyrone - 3 employees owed £51416. Annavale Joinery Works - 4 employees owed £36617. Colemans Garden Centre - 35 employees owed £4118. McAleer and McGarrity in Mid Ulster - 2 employees owed £60319. Trinity Park Nursery - 17 employees owed £6020. Birdies Day nursery - 8 employees owed £10221. The Sooty Olive in Derry - 33 employees owed £2422. Kids Korner nurseries in Belfast - 23 employees owed £3323. Safe Gas NI Ltd - 1 employee owed £63924. Kanto Stranmillis Ltd - 1 employee owed £59025. Happy Children Nursery in Strangford - 12 employees owed £4726. Euro Hand car wash - 7 employees owed £7627. Ardmore Pre-cast concrete Ltd - 1 employee owed £52528. Timberquay Ltd in Derry - 14 employees owed £16
South Wales Argus
20-05-2025
- Business
- South Wales Argus
School support staff in Wales 'struggling' to make ends meet
The workers met with the Low Pay Commission this week in a meeting organised by public services union Unison as the body gathers evidence to decide the next potential rise in the minimum wage. Research from UNISON Cymru has revealed the struggles school support staff are facing, including working a second job or being unable to get a loan for buying a car because their wages aren't high enough. Some are even on benefits because their wages are too low to sustain themselves. More than two-fifths, or 46 per cent, of support staff have reported having to borrow money just to stay afloat. Angharad Simpson, a school support worker from Blaenau Gwent, said: 'Paying the bills is a challenge each month'. She added: 'It shouldn't be like this. We don't enter the profession thinking we're going to become rich, we just want to be fairly rewarded'. Unlike heads and teachers who are paid year-round, school support staff are only paid for term-time, excluding the summer holidays and other half terms. This means they are only paid for nine months of the year, but this is disguised as 12 payments averaged out over the year. Chair of the UNISON Cymru school support staff forum, Sara Allen, noted the current crisis of schooling in Wales. 'Years of underfunding for schools and below inflation pay awards for staff have created a recruitment and retention crisis in Welsh schools. People are put off from jobs in schools because they know they can find better wages working in supermarkets.' The union want to ease the recruitment and retention crisis in education by aiming for a special negotiating body set up for school support staff in Wales.
Irish Times
30-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Greater numbers of jobs advertised at minimum wage after 2024 rate increase
An above-inflation increase to the national minimum wage last year coincided with a substantial rise in the number of jobs advertised at the rate, according to a report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) . Using an extensive survey of jobs across the economy advertised online in recent years, the study finds that while the percentage of jobs advertised at the minimum wage prior to last year was consistently in single figures, and stood at 7.7 per cent in 2023, it doubled to 15 per cent when the wage increased from €11.30 to €12.70. The survey also notes major regional differences in the proportion of people earning the minimum wage over the years it covered. On average, three times as many vacancies advertised in Co Donegal between 2021 and last year offered the minimum wage as the starting rate when compared to Dublin, at 22 per cent versus 7 per cent respectively. READ MORE Last year, however, after the 12 per cent increase to the rate on January 1st, the respective numbers were 29 per cent and 11 per cent. [ Planned roll-out of 'living wage' for low earners in 2026 faces delay Opens in new window ] While increases to the minimum wage, based on annual recommendations by the Low Pay Commission requiring approval by the Government, directly benefit those already on it, Dr Paul Redmond, one of the authors of the new research, said the findings indicate a substantial growth in the number of workers paid the minimum wage as employers failed to maintain pay differentials in their workplaces. 'We see increases to the minimum wage every year but the figures for the number of job vacancies advertised at it were fairly flat until 2024, when we see this more substantial increase in the rate, followed by a big jump in the number of jobs advertised at that new minimum rate.' The figures, he added, suggest that tens of thousands of roles previously paid above the €11.30 minimum wage in 2023 were only brought up to the €12.70 rate at that point. The roles most commonly attracting a minimum wage include kitchen porter, sales assistant and bar tender, with retail and hospitality the sectors in which the national minimum wage is most prevalent but, said Dr Redmond, that list also includes healthcare assistants, with one of the largest minimum wage employers being a nursing home group. [ ECJ rejection of Minimum Wages Directive would deal blow to social Europe programme - Tasc Opens in new window ] 'So these are not necessarily the sort of jobs you think of when talking about the minimum wage,' he says. 'These are often permanent, full-time positions, often with a requirement for a qualification, and the type of tasks the people undertake are very different to what you are talking about with the majority of minimum wage roles, providing clinical care or services to older and sick people in nursing homes. 'So the report brings home just how many of these minimum wage jobs there are out there.'
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
National Living Wage lift is not without cost to some workers and economy
The first of April marks the turn of the financial year as well as Fool's Day, but the cost of living increases arriving this month are no joke. Combined water, energy, council tax and communications bills are rising almost £450 for average households, more of a gut punch than a punchline for already stretched households. The increase is largely driven by a long-delayed correction in water bills and energy price fluctuations, but there is some consolation on the other side of the ledger, with household incomes also rising across the board, a trend ministers are predictably seeking to highlight. Money latest: Most household bills rising today Pensioners have become used to the triple-lock delivering income growth and this year's 4.1% settlement amounts to an additional £471 a year for those on the new state pension. Wages more generally, meanwhile, have been rising faster than inflation for almost two years, and were running at 5.6% in January (though individual pay packets are determined by employers). The most impactful change however is to the National Living Wage (NLW), up 6.7% this month, worth £1,386 a year more to someone working a 40-hour week, who can now pull down an annual salary of more than £23,000. The NLW is one of the more strikingly effective public policy interventions of the last 30 years. Backed by governments of all stripes (as popular measures that cost the state nothing tend to be) it has delivered more money to young and lower-paid workers without causing the unemployment spike of which some warned when it was introduced in 1998. Guided by the Low Pay Commission, it last year achieved the goal for which it was established, to lift the minimum wage to two-thirds of the median salary. Cost of living calculator: That is not to say it is without cost. The increases are a burden to employers, one that is felt more keenly this year with the imminent halving of the employer national insurance threshold increasing annual costs by more than £700 per-NLW employee. There are also pressures further up the pay scale, with wage "compression" requiring employers to pay everyone more, as lower earners close the gap on their more senior peers. Economists warn there is also a danger that higher wages disincentivise companies from taking a risk on younger and traditionally cheaper workers, and instead target the experienced and already employed. There is also the question of what it means for graduates, who will emerge from higher education with improved long-term prospects, but laden with debt and looking at starting salaries not a lot higher than they may have earned in their part-time summer jobs.
Sky News
01-04-2025
- Business
- Sky News
National Living Wage lift is not without cost to some workers and economy
The first of April marks the turn of the financial year as well as Fool's Day, but the cost of living increases arriving this month are no joke. Combined water, energy, council tax and communications bills are rising almost £450 for average households, more of a gut punch than a punchline for already stretched households. The increase is largely driven by a long-delayed correction in water bills and energy price fluctuations, but there is some consolation on the other side of the ledger, with household incomes also rising across the board, a trend ministers are predictably seeking to highlight. Pensioners have become used to the triple-lock delivering income growth and this year's 4.1% settlement amounts to an additional £471 a year for those on the new state pension. Wages more generally, meanwhile, have been rising faster than inflation for almost two years, and were running at 5.6% in January (though individual pay packets are determined by employers). The most impactful change however is to the National Living Wage (NLW), up 6.7% this month, worth £1,386 a year more to someone working a 40-hour week, who can now pull down an annual salary of more than £23,000. 4:50 The NLW is one of the more strikingly effective public policy interventions of the last 30 years. Backed by governments of all stripes (as popular measures that cost the state nothing tend to be) it has delivered more money to young and lower paid workers without causing the unemployment spike of which some warned when it was introduced in 1998. Guided by the Low Pay Commission, it last year achieved the goal for which it was established, to lift the minimum wage to two-thirds of the median salary. Cost of living calculator: See how much your bills are going up That is not to say it is without cost. The increases are a burden to employers, one that is felt more keenly this year with the imminent halving of the employer National Insurance threshold increasing annual costs by more than £700 per-NLW employee. There are also pressures further up the pay scale, with wage "compression" requiring employers to pay everyone more, as lower earners close the gap on their more senior peers. Economists warn there is also a danger that higher wages disincentivise companies from taking a risk on younger and traditionally cheaper workers, and instead target the experienced and already employed. There is also the question of what it means for graduates, who will emerge from higher education with improved long-term prospects, but laden with debt and looking at starting salaries not a lot higher than they may have earned in their part-time summer jobs.
