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Across the UK selfemployment has been rising for some time and particularly since the onset of the global financial crisis. In fact, between 2007 and 2016 self-employment in the UK has risen from 3.6 million to 4.3 million, rising from around 12.5% of the workforce (aged 16 to 64) to over 14%. Self-employment is now at its highest level for 40 years. Although selfemployment rates in Wales are a little lower than in the UK as a whole and growth has not been as rapid, selfemployment here has risen over the same period from just over 12% to 13%. This growth in self-employment has not escaped the attention of politicians and Westminster policy makers (Deane, 2016; Mone, 2016; Taylor, 2017), nor of policy think tanks and bodies such as the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Some of this attention has been directed towards concerns about the transitory and precarious nature of selfemployment, the absence of social protection for the selfemployed in comparison to those in paid employment. This debate has crystalised around concerns about the rise in the so-called “gig economy”. Such new internet-based “platform” businesses are allegedly encouraging workers into self-employment status as a route toward increased labour flexibility and avoidance of potentially costly employment protection rights and other benefits which accrue to those in a paid employment relationship. Precise calculation of the size of the gig economy is problematic because of the lack of any agreed definition. The gig economy comprises both self-employed workers and those employed on zerohours contracts. It has been estimated that by 2016 there were approximately 1.3 million people (4% of all of those in employment) working in the gig economy in the UK, and commentators suggest that the gig economy will continue to grow. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimates that almost two-fifths of those engaged in gig-economy work are doing so to supplement more traditional ‘employed status’ jobs. Further indicative information is shown in changes in the proportion of the self-employed who work as freelancers or subcontractors, sometimes termed the “dependent” selfemployed. Data from the Understanding Society household panel survey suggests that the proportion of these dependent selfemployed has risen slightly from 23.5% in 2009/10 to 25.7% in 2014/15. Much of the policy discussion about self-employment, over recent years, has consequently been about the pattern of growth in emerging types of dependent selfemployment, not associated with business ownership.

Self-employment in Wales: micro-business activity or the rise of the gig economy?