A number of business organisations recently wrote to the Economy Minister calling for a delay to the proposed Good Jobs Bill, citing concerns about its potential impact on employment and arguing that now is not the appropriate time to proceed.
At the centre of this position is a familiar assumption in labour market debate: that improvements in job quality necessarily come at the expense of job creation. While intuitively appealing, this assumption is not strongly supported by the wider evidence on labour market regulation.
It also shapes how policy timing is understood. If employment effects are assumed to be negative, then periods of economic uncertainty can be used to justify postponement. In that context, the question of timing becomes less about empirical evidence and more about perceived risk.
This raises a broader issue: under what conditions would it ever be considered the right time to introduce measures designed to improve job quality?
When labour market conditions were exceptionally tight, it was argued that stronger standards were unnecessary because employers were already providing good jobs. As conditions have shifted in some sectors, the argument has become that reform would be too disruptive or would threaten employment. If reform is always contingent on favourable conditions, it risks being indefinitely deferred.
Over the past two decades, economic conditions have rarely been stable. Recovery periods have been interrupted by successive shocks, including the global financial crisis, austerity, Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and ongoing geopolitical instability affecting energy and trade markets. Further international conflict risks reinforcing this volatility, with implications for inflation and growth across advanced economies, including Northern Ireland.
Against this backdrop, the distinction between job quantity and job quality is often framed as a trade-off. However, this framing is increasingly difficult to sustain. The relevant question is not whether economies must choose between more jobs or better jobs, but how the institutional framework of the labour market shapes the possibility of achieving both.
Northern Ireland’s Programme for Government recognises that economic performance depends on both the quantity and quality of employment. The Department for the Economy’s economic vision similarly places the Good Jobs agenda alongside productivity, regional balance, and decarbonisation as core objectives.
There is also a tendency in policy discussion to assume that stronger employment regulation will necessarily reduce job numbers. However, the empirical evidence does not support this view. Comparative labour market research, including OECD and related international analysis of minimum wages, employment protections, and working time regulation, consistently finds little to no systematic negative effect on aggregate employment when reforms are introduced gradually and within stable institutional frameworks.
This matters because it reframes a central aspect of the debate. If employment levels are not adversely affected in aggregate, then arguments for delaying reform on the basis of job losses become significantly weaker.
What is often less visible in this discussion is the role of labour standards in shaping how competition operates within the economy. Labour market outcomes are not determined solely by individual firm decisions, but by the institutional rules and norms that structure competitive behaviour across firms.
Where standards are weak or uneven, competitive pressure is more likely to be expressed through lower labour costs and greater reliance on insecure forms of work, rather than through improvements in productivity or organisational capability. In this sense, labour standards function as part of the framework that governs adjustment within the economy, rather than as an external constraint upon it.
The implications of this extend beyond individual employment relationships. Persistent insecurity, high turnover, and limited worker voice are associated with weaker labour market performance over time. A model that relies heavily on low-paid and insecure employment is unlikely to deliver sustained productivity growth, and this has been reflected in the UK’s performance, including in Northern Ireland.
Workers’ preferences in this context are also often mischaracterised. Predictability of hours, income stability, and some degree of control over working time are consistently identified as important features of job quality. Contractual arrangements that reflect actual working patterns more accurately can therefore play a role in stabilising employment relationships where work is regular and ongoing.
In this sense, debates around instruments such as banded hours contracts are not solely about flexibility, but about the extent to which employment relationships reflect real working patterns in a more stable and transparent form.
Northern Ireland’s labour market will continue to evolve, with sectors expanding and contracting over time. However, this cyclical variation does not in itself provide a rationale for postponing questions of job quality.
The more fundamental issue is how the institutional design of the labour market shapes both employment outcomes and the nature of competition. The choice is not between job creation and job quality, but between different models of economic organisation — and the outcomes they produce over time.
This was first published in Belfast Telegraph on 21st April 2026. Available online at: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/its-wrong-to-assume-that-job-quality-is-the-enemy-of-job-creation/a/146042653.html