'New' self-employed without employees want a challenge and flexible working hours

The main reason consultants, IT experts, builders and other self-employed persons without employees that offer their own labour or services give for becoming self-employed is that they wanted a challenge.  Many of these also-called ‘new’ self-employed  also want to set their own working hours. They are very satisfied with these aspects. These are just some of the results of the self-employed labour survey conducted by Statistics Netherlands and TNO at the end of 2012.

‘New’ self-employed report that the wish for a new challenge was the main reason they decided to become self-employed. Another important consideration was that they wanted to more control of how long and when they work. Other reasons - not or no longer wanting to work for a boss, not being able to find a job as an employee, or being able to earn more – played a less important part.

Traditional self-employed

For traditional self-employed such as shopkeepers or farmers, who sell goods or raw materials, and for self-employed people who employ others, new challenges and flexible working hours are less important. They often started their own business because it was something they had always wanted to do. 

Satisfied with working hours

Relatively more ‘new’ self-employed than those in other categories of self-employed are very satisfied about the possibilities for working part-time and determining their own working hours. Occupations of traditional self-employed often provide fewer opportunities for this. Relatively more traditional self-employed are also not satisfied about their income. More self-employed persons with employees than those without employees are satisfied with the demand for their products.

Work bottlenecks

New self-employed experience more problems with unnecessary consultations and meetings than their traditional counterparts. On the other hand, they have fewer problems with unnecessary administration. New self-employed relatively often lose time as a result of traffic tailbacks, delays in public transport and other transport problems. This is related to the longer journeys they have to make because of the nature of their work.