Nearly 240 UK employers  who underpaid the National Living and Minimum Wage were named and shamed today in a list released by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The 239 employers were found to have underpaid 22,400 UK workers by a total of £1.44 million.

The back pay identified by HMRC was for more workers than in any previous single naming list and has generated record fines of £1.97 million for the employers.

The list of employers who were among those said to have underpaid workers include a recruitment agency, care homes, car washes, pubs, hairdressers, football and cricket clubs.

Birmingham-based recruitment agency AM 2 PM Recruitment Solutions, which specialises in permanent and temporary recruitment, was on the list for failing to pay £22,919.12 to 2,057 workers, with average debts of £11.14 per worker.

“Employers who don’t do the right thing face fines as well as being hit with the bill for backpay,” Business Minister Andrew Griffiths said. “Our priority is making sure workers know their rights and are getting the pay they worked hard for.”

The top 5 reasons for National Minimum and Living Wage underpayments in this round were:

• taking deductions from wages for costs such as uniforms
• underpaying apprentices
• failing to pay travel time
• misusing the accommodation offset
• using the wrong time periods for calculating pay

Funding for minimum wage enforcement has more than doubled since 2015, with the government set to spend £26.3m in 2018/19.

The naming and shaming programme is in its fifth year and calls out employers who have fallen foul of minimum wage laws, so far identifying £10.8 million in back pay for around 90,000 workers, with more than 1,900 employers fined a total of £8.4 million.