The last quarter of 2012 was a smashing one for those slipping into self-employment, with the Office for National Statistics stating figures rose by 25,000.
The ONS’ latest Labour Market Report found that the number of freelancers, limited company contractors, and umbrella company workers in the UK have swelled to 4.22 million. This is rather noteworthy, indicating that the allure of working for no one but yourself seems to be a siren song to Brits that are fed up with working like dogs to make someone else shedloads of cash.
The ONS found that the self-employed are working either as much – or as little – as they like, as not even 38 per cent were found to be working between 31 hours and 45 hours in any given week. In fact, almost 23 per cent of freelancers and contractors were only working between 16 hours and 30 hours every week, 3 per cent worked less than 6 hours.
Freelancers are also burning the midnight oil, with nearly one out of every three working more than 45 hours every week. This was quite more than the percentage of permanent workers pulling in massive hours every week, as less than 18 per cent of full-time workers were working long hours; it seems that the flexibility of working for yourself – and perhaps even from the comfort of your own home – makes it much more palatable than slaving away for a paymaster.
Unemployment was down for the quarter as well, as the Office made the calculation that there were some 29.73 million Brits had gainful employment across the last three months of 2012, up by 154,000 from the three months preceding it. The employment sector year-on-year is up by a massive margin as well, as there were 584,000 less people in work in 2011 during the same period of time.ONS calculates that 29.73 million people were in work across the quarter, up 154,000 on the previous quarter and by 584,000 on the same quarter last year. This meant that the employment rate stood at 76.6 per cent for men and 66.5 per cent for women. This reflected a drop in unemployment of 14,000 from the previous quarter.
All in all it’s wonderful news and I can only hope that the trend continues in such a manner. More contract workers means that there are less people languishing on the dole and going out and making some money for their household, though it could also be that there were more people forced into freelancing because they were sacked by companies that couldn’t afford to pay the wages of a permanent worker any more and had instead decided to transition to a contractor-based employment scheme to save on expenses.
