Almost half, or 44% of employees in Europe, have been paid late by their employers, according to survey data from HR service provider SD Worx.

The survey, which polled more than 4,000 employees across the UK, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, also showed that of the 44% of employees who’d been paid late, 48% of them had also been paid incorrectly. Moreover, 79% of employees that had been paid incorrectly identified the issue themselves and, on average, 44% of respondents would consider leaving their jobs after being paid incorrectly.

The SD Worx survey targeted employees working in organisations sized between 10 to 10,000 employees who had experienced a delay in payment from their employer, finding that employees in the Netherlands were most likely to be paid late (55%), followed by Germany (46%).

“The results of this survey are shocking in regards to the impact that payroll error has on employee engagement,” Jan Van Mol, Head of Global Alliance at SD Worx, said. “An increasing number of employees are becoming actively disengaged in their workplace due to late or incorrect payments, something that employers need to fix to ensure that their employees have high morale and trust in the workplace”.

The reasons for delayed payment varied for each country, with the main two reasons being “Late third-party payments impacting cash-flow” and “System error or outage”.