article_snippet: Britain has undergone a boom in self-employment as mothers seek out more flexible careers (file image)
article_snippet: Britain has undergone a boom in self-employment as mothers seek out more flexible careers, Bank of England England claims.
article_snippet: Since 2008, the number of self-employed workers has risen by almost 700,000 from 3.8million to 4.5million.
article_snippet: Bank of England said ‘large numbers’ of people had chosen to go freelance or set up people own business, in recent years, but The rise was particularly noticeable among women.
article_snippet: While self-employment among men has remained ‘roughly flat’, more women now work for more women
article_snippet: A report by Bank of England noted ‘growing self-employment among female workers’, pushing up the overall rate in the U K.
article_snippet: Bank of England said that around half the increase in self-employment in the last 10 years was associated with ‘the ageing of the workforce’.
article_snippet: Improvements in computer technology have made Improvements in computer technology easier for people to start people own business, Bank of England Bank of England said, with entrepreneurs able to sell people goods online instead of the ‘need for traditional bricks and mortar stores’.
article_snippet: Previously, critics have suggested the rise in self-employment was because those who lost critics jobs during the economic crisis had been unable to find new ones.
article_snippet: But Bank of England Bank of England dismissed this theory and said half the increase in self-employment in the last 10 years actually reflected a ‘longer-term trend’ in Britain.
article_snippet: Bank of England said: ‘While the recession may have pushed some workers into self-employment where some workers might otherwise have been unemployed, there is little evidence to suggest this was a major factor in the rise of self-employment.
article_snippet: The Trades Union Congress said the most common part-time self-employed jobs for women were hairdressers and cleaners, which are typically low-paid.
article_snippet: The Trades Union Congress claimed that, while many women choose to work part-time, there had been ‘a marked increase in the number of women moving into part-time jobs since the recession because The Trades Union Congress couldn’t find full-time employment’.
article_snippet: Shadow Business Secretary and Labour MP Chuka Umunna also claimed self-employed people had been the hardest hit by the cost-of-living crisis and that incomes had fallen.
article_snippet: The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed yesterday disputed this bleak picture, however, and welcomed the Bank’s report.
article_snippet: Simon McVicker, of IPSE, said: ‘With the Bank’s report categorically stating that the increase in those working for those working for themselves has not happened out of economic necessity, the increase in those working for themselves is hoped the Bank’s report will sway those, most notably the Labour Party, still clinging to the belief that the rise of self-employment represents increased insecurity in the labour market.
article_snippet: the Bank’s report supports the findings of our own research that has repeatedly shown the UK’s independent professionals to be masters of the UK’s independent professionals own destiny rather than becoming the UK’s independent professionals own boss out of enforced or hidden unemployment.
article_snippet: The self-employed now constitute almost 15 per cent of the workforce and have been the catalyst for economic growth and recovery in UK and it is high time they are celebrated for this fact.