Who is the employer for the purposes of paying the national minimum wage?
In general, a worker’s employer will be obvious – it is the person with whom the worker has a contract and who pays their wages. Even if the worker does not have a written contract of employment, they may be a worker if they are performing work personally for someone else – the contract may be implied. The situation may be less clear for workers supplied by an agency. Temporary workers supplied by an agency may not have a contract with the person for whom they are working. However, most agency workers are regarded as workers for national minimum wage (NMW) purposes and their employer is defined as whoever is responsible for paying them. In the case of agency workers this will normally be the agency. If neither the agency nor the client accepts responsibility, whoever actually pays the worker will be regarded as the employer for NMW purposes. Sometimes a worker is employed by a second worker on the premises of the second worker’s employer. In these circumstances, both the second worker
