Tesco returns nearly £10m to 140,000 employees after payroll error
The UK's biggest supermarket will return nearly £10m to 140,000 current and former staff after discovering a payroll error that meant they did not receive the national minimum wage.
Tesco said the payments will be up to £40 for each of the employees affected, and that they will be handing out the payments by the end of this month. The supermarket discovered the error after a review of how it rewards its staff.
Read more: Debenhams outed for not paying nearly 12,000 workers' national minimum wage
Matt Davies, UK and Ireland chief at Tesco, said: "As soon as our own review identified this issue we took immediate action to resolve it and establish which colleagues are affected.
"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."
The revelation comes after Debenhams was caught out by the department for business, energy and industrial strategy for not paying 12,000 workers the national living wage. Sainsbury's then came clean about a similar mistake involving Argos workers, which it is now handling after a merger of the two companies.