Wage Theft Rampant in Australia's Migrant Workforce, Study Shows
- Backpackers and international students most vulnerable workers
- Temporary workers comprise up to 11% of workforce: report
A worker collects freshly harvested bananas at a farm near Tully, Queensland, Australia.
Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg
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Large swaths of Australia’s migrant workforce are being paid just over half the national minimum wage, according to a new study.
Some 32 percent of backpackers and a quarter of international students said they were paid just A$12 ($9.10) an hour or less, in a survey by the University of New South Wales conducted in the last four months of 2016. At the time, there were more than 900,000 temporary migrants with work rights in Australia, comprising up to 11 percent of the labor market, the report said.