Tesco plans pay almost £10 million to current and former staff after payroll errors meant they were paid below the national minimum wage.
A combined total of £9.7 million will be reimbursed to 140,000 of the 320,000 people Tesco employs.
This means the majority of workers will be paid up to £40 to make up for the shortfall in their pay rates, and this will be paid at the end of March.
The Big 4 grocer said the error was discovered during a review of the payroll system, which is fairly new and was implemented recently.
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The mistakes were made for some workers who paid into voluntary schemes such as pensions, childcare vouchers, and cycle to work programmes, which their salary sacrifice meant their final pay not reach national minimum wage levels.
“As soon as our own review identified this issue we took immediate action to resolve it and establish which colleagues are affected,” Tesco UK chief executive Matt Davies said.
“We‘ve apologised to our colleagues and our priority now is to talk to them about how this affects them individually, and make any necessary payments. We expect payments to be up to £40 for the majority of affected colleagues.”
Tesco said they have notified HM Revenue and Customs and the shopworkers‘ union, Usdaw, of the error.
The national minimum wage is currently at £7.20 per hour for workers 25 and over and £6.95 per hour for 21- to 24-year-olds.
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