How to include everyone when implementing a Living Wage policy

Daniela Ceccon

Living Wages and Part-Time Employees

Someone who works only a few hours a week for a company is often excluded from the Living Wage policy. However, there are quite a few European countries that have many part-time employees working 16 or 20 hours a week on permanent contracts. At WageIndicator, we believe it shouldn’t really matter whether they work 8 hours, 16 hours, or 40 hours a week. Dani Ceccon, Data Director at WageIndicator: ‘The benchmark itself is calculated for a full-time worker, but in practice, you can translate that into an hourly or full-time-equivalent rate, and then you apply that to everyone. Employees who work 16 or 20 hours a week are not “less” employees than others. They’re just part-time employees. So if a company says, “Our Living Wage policy only applies to full-time staff,” it’s creating an artificial line that’s very hard to justify, especially if part-timers are doing the same jobs. 

Dani: ‘We also hear companies say: “But this person is a student / they live with their parents / they have another job, so they don’t really need a Living Wage.” I would be very careful with that logic. You don’t know people’s private situation, and it can change very quickly. And you really don’t want to build a policy on assumptions about people’s partners or parents.’

Unfortunately, in many countries, part-timers are treated as “less” when it comes to pensions and unemployment rights. Employees should not be paid less just because they’re part-time or have a “mini-job”. So our advice is: if someone is on your payroll, they should be covered by your Living Wage policy. The Living Wage is about the rate of pay, not about how many hours they happen to work. The number of hours they work only determines the total amount they receive, not whether they deserve the Living Wage rate in the first place.

Collective Agreements and Living Wages policy

Many collective agreements exclude part-timers from pension rights or unemployment rights. Collective agreements often exclude a very small percentage of part-timers from certain benefits for historical or cost reasons. That might be legal, but it doesn’t mean you have to copy that logic into your Living Wage policy. Paulien Osse, co-founder and Global Lead Living Wages: ‘A Living Wage policy can simply say: “For every hour you work for us, we pay at least the Living Wage hourly rate.” Full stop. Whether that person gets pension rights is then a separate, legal question. If you have really occasional, one-off micro-jobs (like someone who comes in once a year for a three-hour event) you might have a debate internally about whether they fall under the formal “Living Wage programme” for monitoring and reporting purposes. But even there, if they’re on your payroll, it’s easier and more consistent to just pay the Living Wage rate and not create exceptions.’

Our experience is that workers who are excluded from pension and unemployment rights are very often women, students, migrants – people already in more vulnerable positions. If your Living Wage policy also excludes them, you risk reinforcing that inequality. In short, for a credible Living Wage policy, everyone on your payroll should get the Living Wage rate for the hours they work.

Interns and Living Wages

Internships sit somewhere between work and education. There are often roughly two types of interns: students doing a short, learning-focused internship as part of their studies, with lots of coaching and not so much real productivity; and graduates or “interns” who are actually doing real work, often full-time, sometimes replacing an entry-level job.

For the interns doing real work, often full-time, it’s hard to justify paying a very low percentage of the Living Wage. If someone is full-time, doing productive work, they look more like a junior employee, so you should aim for the full Living Wage or at least very close to it. When it comes to short and clearly educational internships, there can be some flexibility, but not “0 euro and good luck”. At a minimum, they should not lose money by coming to work. So make sure you cover basic costs: transport, lunch and maybe a small wage. If it’s more than, let’s say, a couple of months or quite intensive, move towards a proper wage; not just symbolic money. 

Furthermore, both types of interns are still people in your workplace. So it’s to be expected to have at least a written agreement that describes learning goals and tasks, working hours and rest similar to other staff (no 60-hour weeks just because they’re “only interns”), health and safety protection and accident insurance, protection against harassment and discrimination, access to grievance channels, and ideally, some form of social security or contribution if they stay longer.

Living Wages and Contractors

Contractors are very often seen as “not my problem people”. And although you can start your Living Wage journey with your own employees, in the long run, it’s very hard to be credible if you keep contractors out. Think about it: in many companies, the people on contractor contracts are exactly the ones in low-paid roles, such as cleaning, security, catering, and logistics. 

Dani: ‘If you proudly say, “We pay a Living Wage to all our employees,” but the person cleaning your offices at 5 a.m. earns far below that, there is a clear contradiction. Legally, yes, contractors are employed by another company. But from a human rights and reputational perspective, they are part of your value chain. They work on your premises, maybe even in your uniform, and under your brand. It becomes very hard to argue that their wage levels have nothing to do with you.’

If you think that, as a company, you don’t have leverage, think again: you set the tender criteria, you choose the supplier, and you decide how tight the price is. For example, you can: include Living Wage clauses in new contracts, ask bidders to show how they will meet the Living Wage level for their workers, and give longer-term contracts so service providers can plan wage increases. It doesn't have to be done overnight, but can also be part of the Living Wage implementation phases: 

Phase 1: Cover your own employees. 

Phase 2: Prioritise high-risk contractor groups (cleaning, security, canteen staff, warehouse, etc.). 

Phase 3: Expand to other contracted workers.

What matters is that you’re transparent and can present a timeline of when you will implement Living Wages to which group. If you really believe in Living Wages as part of your social responsibility, contractors have to come into the picture sooner or later.

Living Wages and Migrants

Since migrants often come from low-income countries, in some countries, they are even excluded from the Minimum Wage. However, this way of thinking is not acceptable. First of all, Living Wages are based on the cost of living, and the cost of living depends on where you live, not on your passport. If a migrant worker lives in the same city as everyone else, they pay the same rent, the same food prices, and the same transport. Their landlord doesn’t give them a “discount” because they’re from a low-income country. So to say “they can live on less” is simply not true in practical terms.

Secondly, paying migrants less for the same work is discrimination. We have talked many times about the basic principle: same job, same rights, same pay. If you systematically pay a lower wage or exclude migrants from the Living Wage (or even the Minimum Wage), you’re basically creating a second-class group of workers. That’s not just a technical issue; it goes against basic labour rights and anti-discrimination principles.

Thirdly, migrant workers often support families in two places: sending remittances back home and trying to survive in a more expensive country. So, the pressure on their income is higher, not lower.

Another argument is that if you pay migrant workers less, it also creates a race to the bottom that harms everyone. Once you accept the idea that one group can be paid below a decent standard, it becomes a business model: “Let’s hire more migrants, because we can pay them less.”, which is a very bad social policy.

Finally, you need to consider also the effect of paying migrant workers less than a Living Wage: overcrowded housing, long hours, multiple jobs, debt, and higher risks of exploitation. And because their status is often more fragile, they are less likely to complain or unionise. So you are effectively building your business model on their vulnerability.

Paulien: ‘Living Wage is about human dignity, it’s not a “luxury” for locals and an optional extra for migrants. Either you believe that the people who keep your business running should be able to live decently from their work, or you don’t. Their nationality doesn’t change that. So, for me, excluding migrants from Minimum Wage or Living Wage protections is not just a technical issue, it’s a clear sign that something is wrong in the way work and people are valued.’

Countries and regulations in favour of including any worker in a Living Wage

The concept of “living wage” (or mínimo vital, “sufficient wage to live with dignity”) appears in the constitutions and/or laws of some countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Venezuela, and the UK. This is reflected in terms such as "Salario Mínimo, Vital y Móvil (SMVM)" in Argentina and other Latin American countries, and "National Living Wage" in the UK.

The labour legislation covers everyone (such as part-time, contract, agency, interns/apprentices, and migrant workers). However, there are some exceptions. Part-time workers are covered, but they must be paid prorated based on hours worked. The minimum wage notifications refer to hourly rates, meaning that part-time, casual, zero-hour, and reduced-hour workers are covered. The same applies for contract and agency workers. The legislation does not differentiate between local and migrant workers in the payment of minimum wages, except in some countries, such as Oman and Saudi Arabia, where minimum wages are notified only for nationals. 

Interns and apprentices, as well as young workers, are a special case, as legislation treats them differently and allows a lower wage (typically 50-80% of the minimum wage) across countries. A company-based living wage policy should consider paying at least the percentage specified in the law or at least 50% of the living wage estimates for that area. 

The above context indicates that the company's living wage policies should cover all types of workers, regardless of working hours (full-time vs part-time), employment status (own workforce vs contractor or sub-contracted workers), territorial status (local vs foreign workers), or age (young workers or interns vs adult permanent workers). 

December 2025