The scale of migrant wage theft in Australia
FairLanding didn't invent this problem — here's the independent, government-funded and government-published research that shows why a tool like this needs to exist.
How widespread is it?
These figures come from Off the Books: Inside Australia's hidden system of migrant worker exploitation (May 2026), the largest national study of migrant working conditions ever conducted in Australia — a survey of 9,963 migrant workers across six languages by the Migrant Justice Institute (UNSW Law & Justice and UTS Law), funded by the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department's National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery.
Source: unsw.edu.au ↗
The regulator is actively pursuing this
The Fair Work Ombudsman recovered $358 million for more than 249,000 underpaid workers in FY2024-25 alone — taking total back-payments to more than $2 billion over the last five years. This isn't a niche issue regulators are ignoring; it's an active, well-resourced enforcement priority.
Source: fairwork.gov.au ↗
Universities are a named enforcement priority
Since 2022, the Fair Work Ombudsman has treated systemic non-compliance in the university sector as a specific priority. The list below is not hypothetical — it's the current public enforcement record for Australian universities.
Source: fairwork.gov.au ↗
FairLanding is a factual information and self-service compliance-checking tool. We are not affiliated with the Fair Work Ombudsman, UNSW, UTS, or the Migrant Justice Institute — the research above is independently produced and linked to its original source so you can verify it yourself.