Labour Force Survey Results, Slovenia, ad hoc modul, 2nd quarter 2017

In the 2nd quarter of 2017 an additional set of questions was added to the Labour Force Survey to gain information on the self-employed and their situation on the labour market. Since the ad hoc module was conducted in all EU Member States, the collected data are internationally comparable.

12% of self-employed among 955,000 employed persons
In the 2nd quarter of 2017 there were 114,000 self-employed persons, 67% men and 33% women. 82% (94,000) of them were company owners (entrepreneurs), sole traders or in liberal profession, while 18% (20,000) worked as farmers.

67% (76,000) of the self-employed worked without employees, more than half of them due to not having enough work. 86% (98,000) of all self-employed in the 2nd quarter of 2017 had no intention of hiring or sub-contracting in the following 12 months.

• The major reason for self-employment was the presence of suitable opportunity - for 30.7% of persons; 25.5% inherited their family business, while 13.3% became self-employed because they could not find a job.
• 50.3% of the self-employed were very satisfied with their current work. Among employees the share was 51.8%.
• 86.6% of the self-employed experienced full autonomy over their work as they were able to influence both content and order of their tasks. Only 36.6% of employees had the same sort of autonomy.
• 6.4% (54,000) of employees would rather work as self-employed; however, 37.7% (20,000) of them stated that financial insecurity of self-employment is preventing them to change the employment status.
• 19.7% (22,000) of the self-employed would rather work as employees.

The most important problem was lack of income when ill
19.4% of the self-employed stated that the most important problem of being self-employed was lack of income when ill, while for 14.9% the most important problem was lack of influence on setting the price of their work. 13.8% of the self-employed perceived clients paying late or not at all as their main problem in self-employment. 28.1% of the self employed had no major problems.

Self-employed on the labour market
The total number of self-employed has been slightly increasing in the last quarters. According to the latest available data, there were 116,000 self-employed persons in the 4th quarter of 2017, 8,000 more than in the 4th quarter of 2016. The latest available annual data for 2016 showed there were 108,000 self-employed persons. In the last 10 years the number was the highest in 2010 (119,000) and the lowest in 2008 (99,000). According to the Employment Service of Slovenia’s implementation report, in the 2007–2013 period the number of self-employment subsidy recipients was the highest in 2010.

The category of economically dependent self-employed persons is an interesting group for the labour market analysis as their share in the total number of the self-employed has been growing in the recent years. Questions on whether self-employed without employees work mainly for one client only and in the premises of this client have been added to the Slovenian Labour Force Survey. Therefore, the economically dependent self-employed are self-employed without employees who mainly work for only one client. In 2012 the share of economically dependent self-employed (according to the stated definition) was 7.9% (9,000), while in 2016 it grew to 12.7% (14,000). In the whole period from 2012 to 2016 the share of economically dependent self-employed was higher among women. In 2016 there were 14.9% (5,000) economically dependent self-employed women and 11.8% (9,000) economically dependent self-employed men.

In the 2nd quarter of 2017 the economic dependency was defined (at EU level) by the questions on the total number of clients in the past year and on the influence over deciding their own working hours. Consequently the economically dependent self-employed are defined as self-employed without employees, with one or one dominant client (at least 75% of their income came from one client), who cannot decide their working hours. 6,000 (5%) of the self-employed met those criteria in the 2nd quarter of 2017.