In its latest Work Audit report, published today, CIPD questions whether the 4.14 million record level of self-employment in the UK heralds a resurgent enterprise culture and concludes that the bulk of those at present taking the self-employed route to work are part-time 'odd jobbers' desperate to avoid unemployment.
The report, The rise in self-employment, based on official statistics, found by the spring of 2010 self-employment was higher than at the start of the recession in 2008 and by the autumn of 2011 had reached a record level of 4.14 million (14.2% of total employment). At the latter date, the level of self-employment was 0.3 million higher than in spring 2008, compared with a corresponding fall of 0.7 million in the number of employees in work.
The additional self-employed since 2008 are unlike self-employed people as a whole in terms of gender, hours of work, occupation and sector of employment.
Although well over two-thirds of self-employed people are men, women account for more than half (184,000, or 60%) of the net rise in self-employment since the start of the recession.
Whereas over two-thirds of self-employed people work more than 30 hours per week, almost nine in 10 (88.8%) of the additional self-employed people since the start of the recession work fewer than 30 hours per week
Almost a quarter of the UK's self-employed people work in construction, but the number of self-employed construction workers is currently lower than in 2008. By contrast, sectors with relatively small shares of self-employment – notably education, information and communications, financial and insurance services and public administration, defence and social security – are among those which have seen the biggest proportional increases in self-employment in recent years.
Skilled tradespeople – popularly typified by 'white van man' – have the single largest share of self-employment (almost 30%), but account for less than 1% of the net rise in self-employment since the start of the recession. People performing elementary (unskilled) occupations account for more than 20% of the net increase, with those in administrative and secretarial and personal services occupations also registering large proportional increases.
John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the CIPD, said: "The typical self-employed person in Britain today remains a skilled tradesperson, manager or professional working long hours on the job, but since the start of the recession the ranks of the self-employed have been swelled by people from a much wider array of backgrounds and occupations, including many 'handy-men' without skills, picking-up whatever bits and pieces of work are available. It is good these self-employed 'odd jobbers' are helping to keep the lid on unemployment in a very weak labour market, but their emergence hardly suggests a surge in genuine entrepreneurial zeal. While some of these newly self-employed may make a long-term commitment to being their own boss, or at least gain the necessary experience to do so, it is likely that most would take a job with an employer – if only they could find one."
