Employers said the rise struck a balance between the need for wage increases and firms' ability to pay
The national minimum wage is to rise by 12p an hour to £6.31 for adults and by 5p to £5.03 for 18-to-20-year-olds from October, the government has announced.
Business secretary Vince Cable said the government accepted the recommendation of the Low Pay Commission.
However, although the Commission said rate for apprentices should be frozen, Mr Cable said it would rise by 3p to £2.68 an hour.
The increases are below current inflation levels.
Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation currently stands at 3.2% and the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) at 2.8%.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.
"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.
"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people. Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates.
"We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."
'Modest' increase
The EEF manufacturers' organisation said the rises struck a delicate balance between the need for pay increases and the limitations employers faced in awarding rises.
"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven," the EEF said.
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low-paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery, so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.
"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices."

Barts and London NHS Trust has hired debt collectors to recover nearly £1m in overpayments from 248 of its employees, an investigation by the Health Service Journal found.

According to the NHS Trust, salary overpayments in the last financial year totalled £995,000, or 0.25% of its total salary bill of £393m.

It said that overpayments occurred when a change in an individual’s circumstances, such as a reduction in hours worked, was not reported to its payroll department in time to meet the processing deadline.

Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “It gives the NHS a bad name and points to a wider malaise.

“Nurses don’t get the same pay cheque every month. If you work weekends or nights you get different rates of pay, so a variation of a few pounds would not necessarily be that obvious.”

He added: “The trust should make it clear to the individual and say what is the most sensible way to repay this. Debt collectors are highly inappropriate.”

Payroll system

The trust revealed that it is currently piloting a new electronic system that will allow managers to provide payroll with more up-to-date information.

It said: “We rigorously pursue all salary overpayments and are confident that this new additional measure will help further to avoid their occurrence in the first place.”

The majority of the amount overpaid has either been recovered or accounted for, but £275,580, or 27% of the total, remains outstanding and is being “actively pursued”.

The recovery of overpayments is a matter that should be approached with sensitivity,” said David Hodge, head of employment law at Brethertons. “Inappropriate or disproportionate recovery procedures could, in certain circumstances, undermine the implied duty of trust and confidence between employer and employee, leading to claims of constructive unfair dismissal.

“Further, there are significant reputational issues at stake if a heavy-handed approach is adopted following what was, after all, the employer’s mistake.”