Employment Legislation
Welcome to the Labour Relations Agency’s employment legislation link pages. What you will find on these pages are summaries of what the legislation covers and hyper-links to the actual employment law as it relates to Northern Ireland.
Finding employment law is not always easy as it can come from a variety of sources, such as Acts of Parliament which apply to the entire UK, or Statutory Rules which apply only to Northern Ireland.
Employment law changes frequently and it can be difficult to track the changes, however most changes to employment law occur in either April or October. We have attempted to keep our web links as up to date as possible to allow the user to see the most recent additions and changes.
Users should note that OPSI links are “unrevised” meaning they are not updated and appear as originally enacted, whereas Statute Law Database links are “revised” meaning they have subsequent statutory amendments incorporated into them periodically.
The Index of Employment related Statutes for Northern Ireland section lists the main Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council relevant to employment by date from 1871-2007, for example, The Employment Rights (NI) Order 1996.
Statutory Rules are the equivalent of Statutory Instruments for Northern Ireland. They are made under the authority contained in Acts of the NI Assembly or Acts of Parliament or Orders in Council. Despite the name, Statutory Rules occur in three main forms “Orders”, “Regulations” and “Rules”.
The hyper-links to the actual legislation come from a variety of sources including: the Office of Public Sector Information, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, the UK Statute Law Database, and The Northern Ireland Statutory Publications Office.
Please note that the Labour Relations Agency cannot be held responsible for the contents of external websites.