Reports of national minimum wage violations fall to under 2,500

The number of whistle-blower reports of businesses violating rules on the national minimum wage (NMW) dropped to 2 488 in the year to 31 March 2021 down from 2 580 the year before. This is the lowest level of complaints in four years according to information obtained by Pinsent Masons.

A likely factor is that businesses in areas like hospitality and retail saw most of their staff furloughed. Staff in these sectors are among the most likely to be paid close to the minimum wage and therefore would have been among those most likely to submit a NMW complaint. However with many of these workers on furlough they would have been less motivated to come forward to make a complaint says the international law firm.

In 2017 HMRC launched an online complaint system for reporting potential breaches of NMW laws. This...