This NERI blog is written by Professor John Geary, School of Business, UCD and Dr. Lisa Wilson, Senior economist, NERI. They discuss the main points of their recent NERI Report Series no 27 - 'Job Quality in Ireland: First findings from the UCD Working in Ireland Survey 2021'.
Having a good job is the ideal of many, but few – we now know – manage to get one.
Drawing from the first major national survey of job quality in Ireland, the UCD Working in Ireland Survey (WIIS), we learn that one in five workers have good jobs. These jobs pay well, provide good employment security, good work-life flexibility, and provide workers with high levels of discretion over the conduct of their work. We refer to these jobs as being secure, high-quality jobs.
At the other end of the job quality spectrum, a little over a quarter of the workforce are employed in poor quality jobs. They are broadly of two types. The first we label demanding, highly controlled, precarious jobs. Workers in this group face significant job insecurity, earnings are low, they work hard over long hours and have poor work-life flexibility. The second cluster, precarious, low-paid jobs, are similarly characterised by insecurity and low pay, but are also typified by the provision of little training and few managements supports.
In-between these good and bad jobs are jobs of moderate job quality in which half the workforce is employed. These job types divide equally into two clusters. The first are secure, moderately good, unionised jobs. These jobs provide secure, full-time, permanent employment. They offer workers the opportunity to have a say in how their work is performed, and they tend not to generate work-life conflict. While these jobs provide good benefits and perks, the pay is below or at average earnings levels. These are mainly unionised jobs in the public sector and in large firms in the private sector.
The second such in-between job cluster we label secure, relatively good jobs with strong employee-management relations. Like the previous cluster, jobs in this cluster are typified by secure employment, average to low earnings but, by contrast, they do not have union representation. Workers in these jobs, however, enjoy good support from their line managers and benefit from trustful relations with their employers. These jobs are particularly evident in foreign-owned organisations.
So, who then has the good jobs?
Mainly men. Men are almost three times more likely than women to occupy high quality jobs, and men are significantly less likely to have poor quality jobs. There is, then, a marked pattern of occupational gender segregation in the Irish labour market.
Care workers do not fare well. Across a broad range of job attributes, care workers exhibit poor job quality. Operatives engaged in process, plant and machinery jobs also record poor job quality.
Workers employed in foreign-owned firms have generally reasonably good jobs, with one significant caveat. In comparison to their counterparts in other sectors they are more likely to work long hours, with more intensity and to experience greater work-life spillage.
On the whole, job quality in the information, communication and technology sector is superior to that in all other sectors. By contrast, those employed in the arts and entertainment sector have considerably poorer job quality across a broad range of job attributes.
What can be done to improve job quality?
The Irish economy has generated substantial numbers of high-quality good jobs. Still, low wage employment and insecure terms and conditions of employment are prominent features of many jobs. Plainly, more needs to be done to turn these jobs into jobs of moderate or of high quality.
However, even the highest quality (or even the best) jobs have certain negative attributes. Long working hours are a prominent feature. These jobs can also be thought of as “greedy jobs”. There is an expectation that the job becomes the primary investment of an employee where they are expected to make personal sacrifices if they are to prosper in the job. This might be seen as an inevitable trade-off between long working hours and being able to enjoy other aspects of job quality (good pay, job autonomy, etc.).
However, this position can be challenged. To concede to such a view denies many, particularly women, the opportunity to enter such jobs without compromising on other commitments in their lives, including providing childcare or elderly care.
But there are ways in which these good/greedy jobs can be made more accessible to women. The policy choices are in terms of job design – more teamworking so that workers can cover for one another in dealings with clients and patients – and increased staff resourcing to reduce long working hours. This is achievable. The example of the pharmacy profession in the United States, as studied by Claudia Goldin, the recent recipient of the Nobel memorial prize in economics, reveals how the adoption of such practices, helped women to remain within this high-paying profession.
The State, too, can do more to improve job quality. It has several options. It could establish a set of minimum standards across a series of job quality dimensions. It could also do more regarding paternal leave: shared maternity-paternity leave would lessen the care burden on women. While these options are not without difficulty, there is precedent for doing so. We already have a national minimum wage, and we are working towards the achievement of a living wage. Workers have rights in respect of sick pay and there is the forthcoming code in respect of the right to request flexible working. There are very significant gains that improve people’s job quality.
Another approach is for the state to enhance the role of sectoral collective negotiations between unions and employers. This too can provide a means for establishing minimum job quality standards where all parties have a stake in eliminating the use of poor job quality as a method of gaining competitive advantage. The negotiation of sectoral minimum standards creates the business space within which those employers who provide good quality jobs can continue to do so.
Good jobs enhance the productive capacity of an economy. Poor jobs do not. Not only do they lead to poor employee retention and engagement, but their inadequate earnings and poor conditions of employment impair people’s health and wellbeing. These are negative spill-overs, for which the state – to put it prosaically – is compelled to pick up the tab.
John Geary is professor at UCD’s School of Business and Lisa Wilson is senior economist at the Nevin Economics Research Institute