Self-employment in UK – More than two in five new jobs created since mid-2010 have finds Trades Union Congress

Self-employment accounts for 44 per cent of the net rise in employment since mid- 2010, with pensioners, part-time workers and ‘odd-jobbers’ the fastest growing groups of Britain’s new self-employed workforce, the TUC says today (Monday) ahead of the latest employment figures published later this week. 

The TUC analysis shows that despite self-employment being a relatively small part of the UK jobs market – just one in seven workers are self-employed – it has accounted for 44 per cent of all employment growth since the last election.

Workers aged 50 plus account for half the increase in self-employment, with self-employed workers aged 65 and over the fastest growing group in the labour market (increasing by 29 per cent since the end of 2010).

Over 40 per cent of all the self-employed jobs created since mid-2010 are also part-time. The TUC is concerned that many people are only taking this kind of work because they are unable to find good quality employee jobs which provide the stable employment they really want.

The TUC’s analysis also shows that the number of people starting their own businesses has fallen in recent years, in spite of rising self-employment. The biggest growth areas of self-employment since mid-2010 have been people working for themselves (up 232,000), freelancing (up 69,000) or sub-contracting (up 67,000).

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Trades Union Congress – More than two in five new jobs created since mid-2010 have been self-employed.

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