Outputs From WIIS 2 

  Working Life on Low Pay in Ireland:

Press Release​​​

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Low pay is endemic in Ireland’s labour market. As many as one in three workers earn less than a living wage, and struggle to make ends meet, a new survey finds.

Dublin, 21st September 2026

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Among the key findings of the Working Life on Low Pay report which is derived from the Working in Ireland Survey include:

• Between 13% and 32% of employees have low weekly earnings, depending on the threshold used. Almost one in four (23.4%) earn less than two-thirds of the median weekly wage, the conventional measure of low pay. Almost one in three (31.6%) in a full-time job earn less than the Real Living Wage would pay, the test of whether earnings are enough to live on.

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• Low pay is about hours, not just the hourly rate. While seven in ten low-paid workers earn more than the National Minimum Wage per hour, their pay is low because they work too few hours in the week: just over half of the low paid work part-time, and more than three-quarters of those on 17 to 24 hours a week are low paid.

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• When we focus solely on those in full-time work, we find they are not insulated from low pay. One in five full-time employees (21.8%) earns less than the Real Living Wage.

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• Women are hit hardest. Almost one in three women are low paid as against 17% of men. And low pay is concentrated primarily among women: women make up two-thirds of the low paid.

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• Low paid workers are also young and old workers. 59% of low-paid workers are under 25 and around half of are over 65.

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• Graduates are the largest single group among the low paid, at two in five. A degree lowers the risk of low pay but does not remove it.

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• Three sectors hold more than half of the low paid: retail, hospitality, and health and social care.

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• The Border region has the highest rate of low pay on every measure.

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• Finally, low-paid work is of poor quality. There are few opportunities for training and development, one in four go home physically exhausted most or all of the time, one-third have been shouted at or verbally abused at work in the past year, and nearly one in three struggle to make ends meet.

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Dr Lisa Wilson, Senior Economist at the NERI and Adjunct Associate Professor at UCD School of Business, said:

"The Government's commitment to move the minimum wage towards a living wage is the right one. Eight in ten of those on the minimum wage are low paid over the week, and a higher floor will lift them. It will also reach the one in five full-time workers whose weekly earnings fall below the Real Living Wage, for whom the rate, not the hours, is the problem.

"But most of Ireland's low-paid workers are not on the minimum wage. They are above it, on hours that do not add up to a living wage, in jobs they are prepared to work hard in but that offer little training or development in return. Improving their position means looking at the broader conditions of these jobs, and not only the price of an hour at the minimum."

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ENDS

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Notes to editors: Working Life on Low Pay: Findings from the Working in Ireland Survey 2025 by Lisa Wilson, John Geary, Hugh Creaton, Juliet Hassard, María Belizón and Chris Smart. The Working in Ireland Survey 2025 was administered to 3,040 workers in the Republic of Ireland. It is led by Professor John Geary, UCD, with researchers at UCD, Queen's University Belfast, the Nevin Economic Research Institute and Comillas Pontifical University. Fieldwork 15 May – 28 August 2025 by Ipsos B&A. Interviews: John Geary, john.geary@ucd.ie, or Lisa Wilson, lisa.wilson@nerinstitute.net.