Work Quality in Northern Ireland Statistics - March 2025
Date published:
The latest Work Quality statistical publication was published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA).
This analysis builds on five previous publications and compares the quality of work over five years for key cohorts; sex, age, deprivation quintile, and skill level, where commentary on the latest release is provided below.
Introduction
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.
Five of the eight work quality indicators have had significant increases since 2020
In 2022, three additional work quality questions were added to the Labour Force Survey, these questions relate to bullying and harassment, line manager support, and skill level.
Of the eight indicators included since 2020, five have experienced statistically significant increases; job satisfaction, career progression, neither under nor over employed, flexible working, and earning at least the real living wage.
Job security has remained consistently high across the time series, with nearly all employees in secure employment (96% in 2024). This trend held when examined by sex, age, skill level, and deprivation quintile.
For the most recent period, 2024, the hardest indicator to achieve was the neither under nor over skilled indicator, with approximately half of NI employees reporting that they had the correct level of skills required for their current duties (52%). This was followed by involvement in decision making (55%) with just over half of employees in flexible work (56%), similar to previous years.
Notable differences emerged when analysing key cohorts.
When comparing by sex, the largest difference between male and female employees related to flexible working, with a greater proportion of females in flexible work (65%) than males (47%). Although this is a substantial 18 percentage points (pps) difference, the proportion of males reporting flexible work has grown by 9 percentage points since 2020.
The largest differences were recorded between those in high skilled and low skilled jobs. While almost all employees in high skilled jobs earned at least the Real Living Wage (94%), this figure dropped to 62% for those in low skilled jobs.
When factoring in age, employees aged 18 to 39 reported better opportunities for career development (61%) than employees aged 40 and over (51%), while a larger proportion of those aged 40 and over were earning at least the Real Living Wage (RLW) (84%) than employees aged 18 to 39 (74%).
Those employees living in the least deprived areas were more likely to be earning at least the Real Living Wage (85%), neither under nor over employed (90%) and offered flexible working (61%) than those in the most deprived areas (72%, 85%, and 56% respectively).
Notes to editors:
1. The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available at on the NISRA website.
2. A work quality page, which also includes links to three previous publications and a live work plan, is available on the NISRA website.
3. This release provides statistics for eleven work quality indicators: job security, neither under nor over employed, earnings, bullying or harassment, neither under nor over skilled, career progression, meaningful work, line manager support, employee involvement in decision-making, flexible working and job satisfaction. The earnings indicator is sourced from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), and the remaining ten are sourced from the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
4. Analysis is based on employees aged 18 or over between ‘July 2019 and June 2020’ to ‘July 2023 to June 2024’ in line with data available from ASHE.
5. The definitions for the eleven work quality indicators can be found in the definitions section within the publication.
6. The survey reference date (17th April 2024) was outside the time period for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) grant; therefore 2024 earnings were not affected by furlough. Over the pandemic period, earnings estimates were affected by changes in the composition of the workforce and the impact of the CJRS, making interpretation difficult. In particular, the 2020 and 2021 data are subject to more uncertainty and should be treated with caution.
7. The Real Living Wage (RLW) is announced in November each year and must be implemented by the following May. As such it is likely that the previous year’s living wage was still in place when the survey was completed (i.e. the 2023 ASHE data relates to the pay period including April 2023, at which time the 2023/2024 Real Living Wage of £12.00 may not have been applied). The previous year’s RLW is therefore used to calculate the percentage earning at least the RLW.
8. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency wishes to thank the participating households and businesses for taking part in the Labour Force Survey and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.
9. The Work Quality in Northern Ireland report will be of interest to policy makers, public bodies, the business community, banks, economic commentators, academics and the general public with an interest in the local economy.
10. For media enquiries contact the Department for the Economy Press Office at pressoffice@economy-ni.gov.uk
11. The Executive Information Service operates an out of hours service for media enquiries only between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.
12. To keep up to date with news from the Department you can follow us on the following social media channels:
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13. Feedback is welcomed and should be addressed to: Responsible statistician: Patrick O’Kane, Economic & Labour Market Statistics Branch (ELMS), patrick.okane@nisra.gov.uk or Tel: 028 9025 5161.