The Fair Work Ombudsman announced on 14 September that it had recovered more than $450 million in unpaid wages and entitlements for more than 181,000 workers in 2025-26.
This is an increase of about $95 million on the previous year – up 27 per cent – for the national workplace regulator. The major culprits are the bigger companies in Australia, despite those organisations having the financial and HR resources to be on top of wages and conditions. In what she labels a “continuum of non-compliance”, Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth says $217.3 million in recoveries was representative of the large corporate sector, $6.8m for the building/construction sector, and $24m in recoveries in the disability support services.
“The cumulative back-payments for Australian workers over the last six financial years stands at almost $2.5 billion,” Booth said in a media release.
“We know there’s a continuum of non-compliance, from inadvertent mistakes to deliberate acts, and we act proportionately to what we find, but we’re here to help all parties with free resources and advice to support sustained compliance.”
The $453 million recovered has been attributed in part to an almost-doubled number of proactive investigations in 2025-26, up 86 per cent to more than 2,680 (compared to over 1,400 in 24-25). Recoveries from proactive investigations increased to over $45 million for 13,803 workers in 2025-26 (over $10 million more than that 2024-25, when $35.2 million was recovered).
Further, the...
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