How much do you pay your aupair?

[hoofhearted]

I am thinking of getting an aupair and would like to know roughly what to pay.

Well it should be at least minimum wage for their age.

As being an aupair is deemed as a cultural exchange and they do not receive a wage but pocket money I would just like to know roughly how much per week people are paying their aupairs?

This is was only discussed earlier this month so it may be good to look at this message thread.. this thread

For someone working 25 hours a week then you need to be looking at a minimum of £70 per week...

It's not a cultural exchange, they are an employee with a contract. As they are live in they are exempt from minimum wage, however, but the exact amount depends on your location and any other perks you provide. It's usually £70+ for 25 hours work.

I suggest you do bit of reading through threads on MN to acquaint yourself with the changes in legislation regarding au pairs.

Have a look at auapir agencies, and sites. It depends what you want, but it should be £80 - £100 for 25- 30 hours of basic childcare and light housework (i.e vacumming, dusting), plus room and board.

Fraktious - we do have this debated a lot - but it is not because someone is "live-in" that makes them exempt from the minimum wage. It is because au pairs are considered to share in the household?s work and leisure activities. If someone was a housekeeper, or a cook, or any other form of domestic employee ,who wasn't eating meals with the family and joining in with some of the family activities and trips, they definitely qualify to be paid at least at the NMW or above less the money (£32.27) that can be offset for providing the live-in accommodation to them. Meals or other benefits provided to live-in employees are not considered as counting towards the NMW either.

Also as debated many times before - hoofhearted is correct in stating an au pair is not an employee. Some families may choose not to offer much in the way of 'cultural exchange' and some au pairs may choose not to embrace it either. Some families choose to offer a contract of employment, and this can obviously be a good thing to have this written down, but it is not necessarily a requirement to have this as a formal contract. Remember that the government chose to offer the option to families of registering A2 nationals under the worker registration scheme if they were paid higher amounts or wanted to formalise the arrangements.

ukinczechrepublic.fco.gov.uk/en/visiting-the-uk/working-in-uk/students-au-pairs
"Those who come to the UK to take an au pair position as a means to learn the English language and to enjoy a cultural experience are not required to register under the scheme.
This type of arrangement where an au pair lives as a member of the host family, helping around the home in return for an allowance would not be considered employment for the purposes of the Worker Registration Scheme."

If you do provide an au pair with a formal contract how many people on this forum actually have things like sickness pay, maternity pay, disciplinary and grievance procedures covered (what is the au pair supposed to do for grievance for instance?)..?

changing the above slightly so it reads clearer... the above first paragraph should read "who wasn't eating meals with the family and/or wasn't joining in with some of the family activities and trips"

"would not be considered employment for the purposes of the Worker Registration Scheme." - this is very telling. As we have pointed out many times the ECJ considers au pairs employees for most other purposes. That the WRS chose to exclude them is neither here nor there. Given that it monitors immigration for work purposes, au pairs - being temporary - would rightly be excluded.

The ECJ has used the term workers, not the term employee with respect to au pairs.

For the benefit of anyone new to Mumsnet au pairs in the UK are employees, and always have been.

That means they can enforce the terms of a contract of employment (even if that contract is not written down).

Regarding the Payir case that has been obliquley referred to here, contrary to popular belief the UK government did not try to argue in that case that au pairs were not employees, they tried to argue that they were a special class of employee to whom certain EU legislation that applied to workers did not apply. The EU said that everyone employed in the workforce was a worker.

Sorry hoofhearted your thread has been somewhat hijacked, unfortunately although you might see it as 'pocket money', in the eyes of the law in the UK it is a wage.

As others have said though, the Minimum Wage regulations do not apply. Most people pay £70-£80 (plus full board and lodging of course) for a 25 hour week.

employees and workers are not the same thing all the time. IN EUlaw a worker can be someone who does voluntary work for instance and is nto employed officially. Non-eu aupairs come under different immigration laws to represent the fact they are not normal employees. It would be nigh on impossible to hire a non-eu/eec auapir if this were not the case.

????

Kelly the YMS nationals are treated exactly as an other. There is no non-EU au pair visa category and hasn't been for some time.

The worker/employee distinction is only relevant if the family has other staff.