2018

Wage Theft in Silence indicates that although the majority of migrant workers are paid well below minimum wage, very few ever take action to recover the wages they are owed. Most of those who try to get their wages back are not successful.

Key findings include:

• Among international students and backpackers who acknowledged they had been underpaid in Australia.... Fewer than one in ten took action to recover the wages they were owed.

• Of the small number who tried to recover wages, two in three recovered nothing. Fewer than one in six received the full amount they were owed.

• Only 3% of underpaid participants contacted the Fair Work Ombudsman....

• ...[O]ver half of survey participants indicated that they were open to trying to recover their wages. This suggests that if resources are devoted to interventions that better enable migrant workers to report and address underpayment, many more would do so.

• It is commonly assumed that migrant workers won’t report underpayment because they are unfamiliar with the different legal culture in Australia. In fact, Asian participants were the most open to trying to recover their wages.

• ...[A] quarter indicated fear of possible immigration consequences....

• Many of these barriers can be practically addressed. There is an urgent need for a new or better process for wage recovery....

*Full report can be accessed here.