More than $450 million in unpaid wages and entitlements for more than 181,000 workers have been recovered by the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2025-26.
This is an increase of about $95 million on the previous year – up 27 per cent – for the national workplace regulator, and covers a wide range of industries, including retail and fashion.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth called this a great result for workers.
"The cumulative back-payments for Australian workers over the last six financial years stands at almost $2.5 billion," Booth said.
"These recoveries also help to ensure all those businesses that pay correctly are not at a disadvantage for doing so.
"My message to employers, workers and their advocates everywhere is don’t let the adversarialism that can beset debate over expansion of rights – in legislative reform and bargaining – stop us working together to build the culture of compliance that we have as agreed common ground.”
The FWO has been cracking down on wage underpayments in recent years, with H&M being one of many organisations in the crosshairs. Media reports late last year indicated that the FWO was investigating H&M over allegations that as many as 1,500 of its Australian staff were underpaid, with the bill totalling $35 million. These underpayments could likely stretch back nine years.
That came after Woolworths back-paid around $330 million in 2024-25, while Coles claimed to have made $31 million in remediation costs. This doesn't include fines. Rebel owner Super Retail Group has also been caught in wage underpayments.
The FWO almost doubled its 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, where $35.2 million was recovered).
"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,” Booth said.
"Our proactive investigations are conducted primarily in priority sectors where planned field work and campaigns and inquiries are designed to uncover drivers of non-compliance to help deliver sustained change.”
Close to half of all the financial year’s recoveries for the agency came from the large corporate sector, with interim data (prior to the FWO's annual report publication) indicating recoveries of $217.3 million for over 110,000 workers.
The FWO completed 1,161 matters involving large corporates: 1,051 disputes, 73 proactive matters and 37 self-reports. The agency also signed an Enforceable Undertaking with Westpac, and handed out 23 Compliance Notices and 13 Infringement Notices to large corporate employers.
In the building and construction sector, a priority area for the FWO, recoveries exceeded $6.8 million for 932 workers, with nearly 3,000 matters completed and 14 litigations commenced in 2025-26. Back-payments to sector workers have exceeded $23.2 million from November 2022 to 30 June 2026.
In another priority area, disability support services, the FWO completed more than 1,000 disputes and recovered nearly $24 million for 10,546 workers. The majority of recoveries came through proactive compliance activities. FWO also issued 53 Compliance Notices, which accounted for more than $8.1 million of the sector's recovered entitlements, and entered into three Enforceable Undertakings.