Minimum Wage: Where is the Law About a Trainee's Pay?

A person must be an employee¹ in order to be entitled to the minimum wage (MW).

In 2025, the Government agreed to the Minimum Wage Board's recommendation that 85% of the MW should be paid to persons on certain training programmes that do not exceed three months.

But where is the law that implements the recommendation? Such a law is not mentioned in any Minimum Wage Order. Is the law mentioned in an amendment to the Minimum Wage Act 2017 or any other labour law? 

Please note that it is unlawful to pay 85% of the MW to an employee¹ - if there is no legal basis for doing so.

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1. The definition of an employee can be found in section 2 of the Minimum Wage Act 2017 (MWA). The MW applies to an hourly-paid employee. But the MWA is silent about other types of work, e.g. piecework, where an employee is not hourly-paid.