The number of self-employed persons with a full working week (of 35 hours or more) decreased during the corona pandemic. Last year, 895,000 self-employed persons worked full-time in the fourth quarter, about 44,000 fewer than in the same period in 2019. One in three self-employed persons with less than 20 hours of work per week would like to work more hours. Before the corona crisis, this was one in four. This is evident from new figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
“Why is that? Self-employed people simply have a lot fewer assignments in this time of corona,” says CBS spokesman Van Mulligen. “Salaried employees may also have less work, but self-employed people notice this immediately and much more intensely.”
Creative and linguistic professions
At the same time as the increase in the number of self-employed persons who work less than 35 hours per week, the number of self-employed part-time workers who would like to work more hours per week also increased. These are mainly people in creative and linguistic professions. In the second, third and fourth quarters of 2020, this involved an average of 28,000 people. In 2019, this applied to an average of 19,000 people.
“Think of freelance journalists, but also of actors and other people who work in the cultural sector,” says Van Mulligen. “The theaters are closed, so people for directing, light and sound are hardly needed. While those people would love to get back to work. People who work for festivals also have little to do now. There are many self-employed people among them.”
Statistics Netherlands believes that the situation for these sectors will remain worrisome as long as strict corona measures remain in force.
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