The Power of Small. Bored at work, tired of your boss, want to do something amazing. Start your own business ... new research shows us even more reasons why.

 As I think about entering self employment again - some interesting stats - in case you are thinking it too... 

The Power of Small seeks to examine the large growth in the number of micro businesses, and what this phenomenon might mean for all of us. 

Here are 10 key take-aways from the first report from the RSA and Etsy.

#1 – Self-employment is rising at a remarkable pace

The UK is experiencing a boom in self-employment. the number of people who work for themselves is up by 30 per cent since 2000, meaning that 1 in 7 of the workforce is now self-employed. If these trends continue, the number of people who work for themselves will soon outnumber the public sector workforce (we estimate this could happen sometime around 2018).



#2 – Different types of people are turning to self-employment

The number of women in self-employment has grown at around twice the rate as men over recent years. Older people, too, are increasingly turning to self-employment. There has been a 140 per cent increase in the number of over 65s running their own business since 2000. 


#3 – Self-employment is becoming more important as a form of work outside of London



#4 – There are 3 myths about the growth in self-employment that are distorting public opinion

The first being that most of the newly self-employed are there through no choice of their own. While levels of unemployment and self-employment are positively linked, this is only one part of the story.
A second myth is that most of the newly self-employed are low-skilled odd-jobbers scratching around for work. But look closer at the data and we see that the biggest increases in self-employment since 2008 have actually been in professional occupations (one of the highest skilled groups).
Finally, there is the myth that the boom we are witnessing is a cyclical blip. The growth in self-employment can’t go on forever of course, but the ‘cyclical blip’ thesis ignores the fact that self-employment had been increasing long before the recession began in 2008 (see the first graph above).


#5 – There are deeper shifts occurring in our economy and society that are driving this trend

A gradual shift from ‘materialist’ to ‘post-materialist’ values means that greater numbers of people now prize the freedom and meaning that comes with self-employment. Moreover, the emergence of new technologies – which we often take for granted – have sent the cost of doing business into free-fall.


#6 – The self-employed are an incredibly heterogeneous group

So they used the data from the survey with Populus to segment the self-employed community into six tribes.
 
#7 – The self-employed are materially worse off than people in jobs (by about £74 a week)

The full-time self-employed earn around 20 per cent less than their counterparts in conventional jobs, and their earnings have also been falling – down by around 10 per cent in real terms since the turn of the century. Moreover, we know from data collected by the ONS that the self-employed work longer hours – twice the number spend over 50 hours a week at work as employees. And on top of this is the problem of isolation, with close to 40 per cent of our survey respondents agreeing that working for themselves leaves them feeling disconnected from the wider world.

#8 – But the self-employed appear to be more content at work and happier overall in their lives.



#9 – The rise in self-employment may indicate a new ‘creative compromise’ at work

Of those polled in our survey, 82 percent said the work they do is more meaningful than that found in a typical job, and 87 percent that they have more freedom to do the things they want.


This finding indicates that many of the self-employed see the work they do as an end in itself and an inherently enjoyable activity (a concept that – believe it or not – is still foreign to large parts of society).

#10 – It’s time we learned to live with self-employment

If this report tells us anything it is that high levels of self-employment are here to say, and that most of those who work for themselves (including the newly self-employed) actually enjoy what they do, despite the financial drawbacks.

Which sounds about where I am right now - I think it is time to relaunch EnterMobile.