Self Employment
16/10/2007 | Posted by John Smith in UK stats
Men are more likely than women to be self-employed – 73 per cent of the 3 million self-employed people in spring 2001 were male. Around a fifth of all self-employed people worked in construction, with similar proportions in sales and distribution, hotels and restaurants; and in banking, finance and insurance.
The number of self-employed women has increased over the last twenty years from 650,000 to just over 950,000, with the surprising statistic that nearly 80% of then choose areas to work in that they had not previously worked in. This contrasts with exactly the same percentage of men that chose to work in the same area of business.
The employment rate and the unemployment rate in the UK are currently flat according to the British chamber of commerce.
Recently published statistics show that half of women’s jobs are part-time.
Source: National Statistics Online.
People from certain ethnic groups are more likely to be self-employed than others. Around one fifth of working Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are self-employed, compared with only one in ten white people and fewer then one in ten black people. Chinese and Indian people are also more likely than white or black people to be self-employed. Sales and distribution, hotel and restaurant work account for two thirds of the Chinese, over half of the Indians and two-fifths of the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who are self-employed.
Source: National Statistics Online