The new Living Wage Foundation finding that NI has second-highest low-pay rate in UK despite overall fall, is more evidence that working families need the protections proposed in the long-awaited Good Jobs Bill.
https://www.livingwage.org.uk/employee-jobs-below-real-living-wage-2025
The Living Wage Foundation research was based on the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and highlights where and what sectors are blighted by low wages in a period of rising prices. It finds that “areas with the highest proportion of jobs below the real Living Wage were the North East (18.8 per cent), Northern Ireland (17.3 per cent), and the East Midlands (17.2 per cent)”.
The report also confirms the status of hospitality and retail as the UK economic sectors with more people paid below the Real Living Wage of £13.45 per hour. “The retail and wholesale industry had the highest number of jobs below the real Living Wage” with 53% of hospitality jobs and 50.9% of workers in sales occupations. 57% of workers aged between 18-21 were in jobs paying less than the RLW.
Gerry Murphy, ICTU Assistant General Secretary said,
these figures illustrate the urgent need for the NI Executive to agree the proposals in the Economy Minister’s Good Jobs Bill and let our MLAs do the jobs we pay them to do and legislate for better job security for every worker.
The Bill aims to address the insecurity of Zero Hours Contracts and make it easier for trade unions to represent their interests, defend their jobs and negotiate better wages. Many, if not most of the people being paid less than a living wage do not have access to trade unions.
We have been lobbying politicians and talking with employers representatives for two years now and we have one year of the NI Assembly mandate left to get this vital legislation through the stages of passing a bill into law. Most of the rights in the Good Jobs Bill are already in legislation in England, Scotland and Wales. We need to catch-up with our legislation and get off the bottom of the table for lowly-paid, bad jobs.
