Bendigo employees underpaid superannuation by thousands of dollars

A total of 17,160 people in Bendigo have missed out superannuation, according to an Industry Super analysis of tax office data from 2016/17.

On average these workers have been paid $1829 less than they should.

Read more: $32.81 million super missing from Bendigo workers' accounts

The numbers make Bendigo the ninth worst area in Victoria for unpaid superannuation. Across the state nearly 31 percent of employees were not paid their full superannuation.

Industry Super Australia chief executive Bernie Dean said the situation for Bendigo workers was worse than for those in other regional cities such as Ballarat, Geelong, and for those in metropolitan areas.

He attributed this to the nature of the workforce in the district.

"In Bendigo... there's more insecure work, so people are causal and a lot of younger workers would be going into the service industries or manual labour," Mr Dean said.

"If you're ... under 35, and if you're earning around or less than $30,000 dollars, and you're in the service industries or manual labour, sadly you're very likely to be missing out on some of your superannuation."

Mr Dean said the situation had gone from bad to worse across the country over the past few years.

He attributed the problem to bosses holding money inside the business rather than paying it into employees superannuation funds.

"We're now seeing upwards of one third of our national workforce are being dudded of some if not all of their superannuation requirements," Mr Dean said.

"They're getting away with daylight robbery these dodgy bosses all across the country."

Read more: Financially stressed residents turn to loans as new school year looms

Mr Dean called for politicians to tighten the laws around superannuation.

The law currently requires employers to print superannuation on each payslip, but only pay it quarterly.

Mr Dean said some employees missed out if they moved jobs before the quarterly date, or that some employers were just not paying funds into employees accounts at all.

He called for the federal government to change the laws surrounding superannuation to require workplaces to pay it into workers accounts at the same time they paid salaries.

"We don't think this is a problem that punters should be fixing, this is a problem that parliamentarians can fix and quite easily," Mr Dean said.

Mr Dean said employees who were concerned they may not have been paid enough superannuation could ask their employer directly if they had been paid, and call their fund to find out.

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