Excluded workers

[ch 4: pages 102-103]

Some individuals are excluded from the right to the NMW. They include:

• the genuinely self-employed (that is, anyone, in business on their own account, selling goods and services to their own clients and customers on an arms-length basis [see Chapter 2]);

• share fishermen;

• genuine volunteers (see Chapter 2), and voluntary workers with a contract to work for expenses only for a voluntary organisation;

• family members and au pairs who are genuinely treated as one of the family;

• company directors;

• prisoners;

• higher and further education students on a work placement or “sandwich” course lasting less than a year;

• workers on a government employment programme;

• workers on a Job Centre Plus work trial for up to six months (aimed at unskilled young workers aged 16 — 24);

• workers on government pre-apprenticeship training courses;

• members of the armed forces; and

• school children aged under 16.

Where low-paid workers have been furloughed under the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, taking their hourly pay below the NMW rate for their age, the government says this is not a breach of NMW law because someone who is furloughed is not working. However, furloughed apprentices must continue to be paid at least the NMW for every hour they spend training. Otherwise, there will be a breach of NMW law.