Work Quality in Northern Ireland Statistics – Additional Indicators

Date published: 27 August 2025

The latest Work Quality statistical publication was published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA). This report contains analysis for six additional work quality indicators: accidents at work, underemployment, trade union membership, participation in training, overtime (paid and unpaid) and zero-hours contracts.

The analysis includes comparisons in key cohorts; sex, age, deprivation quintile, and skill level.

Introduction

The latest Work Quality in Northern Ireland paper published in March 2025 contained analysis of eleven work quality indicators. This bulletin adds to the suite of work quality indicators by analysing an additional six indicators and comparing the quality of work across five years. The suite of work quality indicators include subjective and objective measures, relates to employees aged 18 and over and has been derived from the Labour Force Survey and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.

There has been a significant decrease in the number of employees who reported having worked overtime since 2020

Of the six indicators, only one has seen a significant change between 2020 and 2024. This was the proportion of employees reporting that they have worked overtime (paid or unpaid); where there has been a decrease of 8 percentage points (pps) to 21% in 2024 (29% in 2020). Fewer employees doing overtime would be classed as a positive change.

Three have remained consistently positive throughout the time series with nearly all employees reporting that they had not had an accident at work and were not underemployed, and nearly 9 out of 10 employees not having a zero-hours contract.

The remaining two indicators had the least positive outcome throughout the time series.

For the most recent period, 2024, just over one fifth of NI employees reported that they had participated in training in the last 13 weeks (21%). This was followed by trade union membership with just over a third of employees being a member of a trade union (34%).

Comparisons when analysing key cohorts

When comparing by sex, there were no significant differences between male and females for any indicator. The largest difference, although not statistically significant, between females and males was in those who reported being a member of a trade union with 37% of females reporting that they were in a trade union compared to 32% of males.

The largest differences across the cohorts were seen in skill levels, with significant differences in four of the six indicators. Employees in high skilled jobs reported a higher proportion of trade union membership, participation in training and not having a zero-hours contract. However, employees in high skilled jobs were more likely to report working overtime.

By age, a significantly higher proportion of employees aged 40 and over reported trade union membership (38%) and not having a zero-hours contract (92%) in comparison to those aged between 18 and 39 (29% and 86% respectively).

By deprivation areas, there was a significant difference in only one of the six indicators, with a notably higher proportion of employees in the least deprived areas reporting that they did not have a zero-hours contract (91%) than employees in the most deprived areas (85%).