Research by the TUC has revealed that female migrant workers are more likely than any other group to be paid less than the national minimum wage (NMW).
The research - commissioned by the TUC's Commission on Vulnerable Employment and carried out by the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford – was aimed at uncovering the reality of working life for migrant workers.
COMPAS reviewed the pay, working hours, type of work and accommodation of recent migrant workers who had worked for less than 10 years in the West Midlands and in the East of England/East Midlands (both areas with high levels of recent migration). National information about migrant workers, such as the Government's Labour Force Survey, was also included in the report.
The report showed that migrant workers were much more likely to experience problems at work, and highlighted that:
- They work longer hours per week than most other workers - 55 per cent work more than 31 hours per week and 15.4 per cent work more than 48 hours per week (compared to 48 per cent and 13 per cent of workers generally)
Migrant workers are more likely to be working as temps or in insecure work (with no written contract) than any other workers
They are more than twice as likely as other workers to be earning less than the appropriate NMW for their age
Women who are recent migrants to the UK are 1.5 times more likely than male migrant workers to be paid less than the NMW
Women who migrate to work in the UK face a disproportionate risk of being illegally underpaid - with around 35,000 denied the NMW
To download a copy of the report, go to: www.vulnerableworkers.org.uk