Asda underpaid 53,000 staff after IT glitch

Asda has admitted that 53,000 staff were underpaid by the supermarket after its payroll systems were damaged by a botched IT upgrade.Allan Leighton, the supermarket’s executive chairman, said the company had reviewed its systems and discovered errors in how it calculated workers’ holiday and sick pay in the wake of an overhaul dubbed “Project Future IT”.He said this meant 53,000 workers in total – including 33,000 people who still work for Asda – were underpaid between February 2024 and May 2025.Asda vowed to repay workers what they were owed, along with interest payments.Mr Leighton said: “Today, most importantly, we are putting it right for those colleagues affected, with interest.”The admission comes after The Telegraph revealed in March 2024 that thousands of staff had received incorrect payslips following the £1bn IT upgrade project.At the time, the company had said it was taking “immediate and proactive steps to correct this – to help ensure there will be no shortfall in pay for these colleagues this month”.The payroll problems followed years of struggles after Asda sought to disentangle its systems away from former owner Walmart.The upgrade was mired with setbacks, including delays and glitches. One issue affected thousands of orders for its George clothing range.Asda only completed the update in September last year, having initially been aiming for a February finish.In the company’s latest trading update, it blamed the IT upgrade for driving its latest sales slump.In November, Mr Leighton said Asda’s poorer performance was “all to do with Future”. The supermarket posted a 2.8pc sales decline for the three months to the end of September.Mr Leighton said the process to switch onto its own IT systems had been “suboptimal, to say the least”, pointing to poor integration and insufficient testing.He said the issues set the company back in its turnaround efforts by six months.The Telegraph also previously revealed that the botched IT work and subsequent payroll chaos had led Asda to claw back overpayments from workers.On Thursday, Asda said it would be returning that money to staff “so that we are treating all colleagues equally”.Of the staff who were underpaid, more than 80pc are owed less than £19 in total.James Goodman, the chief people officer at Asda, said: “No Asda colleague will be worse off financially. Whether you currently work with us or have worked with us, we are paying back every penny owed with 12pc interest.“Any colleague who has been overpaid will be allowed to keep the money and we are repaying the money that was recovered in March 2024 because of issues caused by the switchover to Project Future.”He added: “We’ve also taken the steps to ensure nothing like this can happen again, validated by external experts.”