Social care workers ‘being paid below the minimum wage’

A new report has suggested that social care employers in the UK are potentially cheating staff out of money by paying them less than the minimum wage.

Data from independent thinktank the Resolution Foundation has revealed that care workers could be losing out on 130 million pounds a year due to pay rates that are in breach of national minimum wage laws.

It is estimated that 160,000 of the 1.4 million care workers in the country are being paid less than this threshold, with each individual losing around 815 pounds a year as a result. This is occurring because employers do not pay staff a wage that adequately covers all of their working time.

Reasons for this include a failure to factor in time spent on call, in training or travelling between clients for domiciliary care workers, with the trend as a whole potentially driving talented workers out of the sector.

Laura Gardiner, senior research and policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said: "Social care will need to fill up to a million additional jobs in the next decade to meet the needs of our ageing population, so tackling the broader issue of low pay in this sector is a real priority."