Self employed working hours: the six-hour price.
Self employed working hours average about forty-five a week across wealthy countries, against thirty-nine for employees. With staff, that figure climbs to fifty-two. You also give up paid holiday, sick pay and the safe month off, so on hours and security, self-employment loses.
Self employed working hours by the numbers.
Across the wealthy countries, self-employed people report working about forty-five hours a week. Those with staff report fifty-two, while employees report thirty-nine, roughly your last week. Also, the gap holds for both sexes. Self-employed men work forty-eight hours against forty-two for employed men. Meanwhile, self-employed women work forty against thirty-four.
In the European figures, one in six self-employed women who employs somebody works more than sixty hours.
Six hours a week, ten years running.
Because self employed working hours rise quietly, the total is worth seeing in full. So the first thing you buy is about six extra hours every single week. Over a decade, that comes to more than three thousand hours. That is roughly a year and a half of extra working life. However, it arrives in six-hour instalments you will barely notice.
What quietly disappears when you leave.
Then some things simply stop existing on the day you go. Paid holiday disappears, because employers give it to employees and you are no longer one. Sick pay goes too, along with anyone covering your clients while you are in hospital. Also, the month you take off becomes the month nothing arrives.
In short, on hours and security, the thing you want loses. Diego could not find a single set of figures that went the other way.
Work out your own self employed working hours cost.
Multiply six extra hours by fifty-two weeks and write the yearly total beside your current job.
List your paid holiday days and sick pay, then note what losing each would mean for you.
From the book.
Then the things that quietly stop existing on the day you go. Your paid holiday, because paid holiday is something employers give employees and you would no longer be one of those. Your sick pay. Anybody covering your clients while you are in hospital. Your safe month, because from then on the month you take off is the month nothing arrives, and you will feel that every August for the rest of your working life.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 4: What you are actually buying
Questions about self employed working hours.
Are self employed working hours really longer than a job's?
Yes, self-employed people report about forty-five hours a week, against thirty-nine for employees.
Do self-employed people with staff work even longer?
They do, reporting fifty-two hours a week on average. Also, one in six European self-employed women with staff works over sixty.
What security do you lose by going self-employed?
You lose paid holiday, sick pay and cover for your clients when you are ill. As a result, any month off becomes a month with no income.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 4, “What you are actually buying”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Reasons for starting a business: what you really buy.
- 02 Self employed working hours: the six-hour price.
- 03 Self employed job satisfaction: why it is real.
- 04 Flexible work arrangements: price what you want.
- 05 Lifestyle business: small on purpose, not by accident.
- 06 Quitting job to open a cafe: count before you leap.
- 07 Revenue vs take home pay: the contract I refused.