The Department for Employment and Learning (DEL), (Irish: An Roinn Fostaíochta agus Foghlama;Ulster Scots: Depairtment for Employ an Learnin), is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility for the department is the Minister for Employment and Learning. The department was initially known as the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment (DHFETE), between 1999 and 2001, and is due to be abolished within the current term of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

DEL’s overall aim is to “promote learning and skills, to prepare people for work and to support the economy”. The incumbent Minister is Dr Stephen Farry (Alliance Party of Northern Ireland).

The department's network of 'job centres' and 'jobs and benefits offices' advertise job opportunities for Northern Ireland residents. It is also responsible for policy in the following areas:

The Department of Education is responsible for all other levels of education in Northern Ireland . DEL’s main counterparts in the United Kingdom Government are:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, created on June 8, 2001 from the merger of the employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security and headed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, a Cabinet position. The total annual budget of the DWP in 2011-12 is £151.6 billion, representing approximately 28% of total UK Government spending. The DWP spends a far greater share of national wealth than any other department in Britain, by a wide margin.

The department is responsible for welfare and pension policy. Its key aims are "to help its customers become financially independent and to help reduce child poverty".

The DWP Ministers are as follows:

The Permanent Secretary is Robert Devereux.

The Department for Work and Pensions has two operational organisations:

The department's public bodies include:

DWP has corporate buildings in London, Leeds, Blackpool, Newcastle upon Tyne, Warrington and Sheffield. The two agencies, Jobcentre Plus and the Pension, Disability and Carers Service, operate through a network of around 1,000 Jobcentres, contact centres and benefit processing centres across the UK.

Dr. Stephen Farry (born Newtownards, 22 April 1971) is a Northern Irish politician, Minister for Employment and Learning in the Northern Ireland Executive and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He represents North Down and is a member of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.

Dr. Farry graduated first class from Queen's University, Belfast in 1992 as BSSc in Politics, continuing his studies there he continued to graduate as PhD in International Relations in 2000.

He was elected to the Assembly in the 2007 election for North Down, having first been elected to North Down Borough Council in 1993. He is a former General Secretary of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.

He was appointed an International Peace Scholar by the US Institute of Peace in 2005. In 2007, he became Mayor of North Down.

Basil McCrea MLA (born 13 November 1959) is a unionist politician in Northern Ireland. He was elected in 2007 to the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member for Lagan Valley. He unsuccessfully contested the 2005 UK General Election in Lagan Valley for the UUP. He is a UUP Councillor on Lisburn City Council and was, until his election to the Assembly, a Party Officer and spokesman for the Northern Ireland Manufacturers' Focus Group. He is currently a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and UUP spokesman on Education. He was also a member of the Committee shadowing the Department for Employment and Learning but had to leave this committee due to overload of work.

He stood for leader of the Ulster Unionist Party against Tom Elliott in the contest after the UK 2010 General Election. He was widely seen as the candidate of the UUP's "liberal" wing, while Elliott was seen as the candidate of the "conservative" wing. He lost the election by 643 votes to 296.

McCrea was educated at Belfast Royal Academy before attaining a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Birmingham. He later attained a degree in Advanced Computer Technology from the University of Ulster.

Charles F. Feeney (born April 23, 1931 in Elizabeth, N.J.), is an Irish-American businessman and philanthropist and the founder of The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest private foundations in the world. He made his fortune as a co-founder, with Robert Warren Miller, of the Duty Free Shoppers Group. The concept of "duty free shopping"—offering high-end concessions to travelers, free of import taxes—was in its infancy when, along with Miller, Feeney founded DFS on November 7, 1960. DFS began operations in Hong Kong (where it retains its corporate headquarters), later expanding to Europe and other continents. DFS' first major breakthrough came in the early 1960s, when it secured the exclusive concession for duty-free sales in Hawaii, allowing it to market its products to Japanese travelers.

DFS eventually expanded to off-airport duty-free stores and large downtown Galleria stores, and became the world's largest travel retailer. In 1996, Miller's and Feeney's interests were acquired by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), the French luxury goods group, for $1.63 billion. Miller still retains a 31% share of the company to this day. In March 2011, Feeney was inducted into Irish America magazine's Hall of Fame. In 1997, Time Magazine said: “Feeney's beneficence already ranks among the grandest of any living American."