PurposeThis paper analyses the relation between occupational characteristics and the probability that a worker in the Netherlands has a false self-employed arrangement instead of an employee arrangement. These are arrangements in which self-employed workers perform tasks in the hierarchy of the firm as if they were employees.Design/methodology/approachData from the Dutch Labour Force Survey is used to analyse the relationship between occupational skill, routine and wage level and the probability to be a false self-employed or a standard or non-standard employee.FindingsThe results show that the probability to be false self-employed decreases slightly with the skill level of the occupation, but there is no evidence that false self-employment is more likely in low paid, routine occupations. Workers in the lowest paid occupations are more likely to have a non-standard contract as an employee. False self-employment arrangements are more likely in the (lower) middle paid occupations. Finally, the results show that working in the highest paid occupations increases the probability of being in a false self-employed arrangement, but only in arrangements that are characterised by economic and organizational dependency. These are arrangements with financial dependency on one client for income combined with dependency on this client on when and where to work.Originality/valueThis study makes an important contribution to the literature on identifying vulnerable self-employed workers as well as to the literature on mechanisms behind the growth of solo self-employment.

Dutch legislation on solo self-employed persons from an international perspective In comparison to other European countries, the Netherlands has a lot of solo self-employed persons and has also experienced a strong growth in this number in recent years. It is likely that Dutch legislation and regulations play a role in this, although this is difficult to determine empirically. In the development of the share of solo self-employed persons, the choice to become a solo self-employed (supply side) and the choice of employers to hire solo self-employed (demand side) both play a role. The laws and regulations in a country can influence these choices. Based on a literature study, this article aims to provide an overview of the costs and benefits of solo self-employment and the institutional factors that can influence the weighting of these costs and benefits. The Netherlands is compared with four other countries, namely Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and Denmark. The outcome shows that under Dutch legislation hiring solo self-employed instead of employees is beneficial for employers in several ways. The Netherlands also has a number of targeted schemes that make it attractive for people to become solo self-employed.

In many industrialised countries, including the Netherlands, the share of solo self-employed workers has strongly increased in recent years. This development is subject to a lot of public debate as it is feared that this increase is caused by ‘quasi’ self-employment. There still seems to be little consensus, however, on what constitutes ‘genuine’ self-employment and what not. In this article we present a theoretical framework for ‘quasi’ solo self-employment and discuss how the various indicators for ‘quasi’ self-employment that are used in the literature fit in this framework. We then compare the outcomes of different indicators by applying them to solo self-employed workers in the Netherlands. The data used for the analysis are taken from the Dutch Labour Force Survey (NL-LFS) 2017 complemented with the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) ad hoc module 2017 on self-employment. Our results show that about 7% of the solo self-employed workers is dependent on one client. Furthermore, almost 20% of all solo self-employed had an involuntary start. The correspondence between dependency and involuntariness is very low: less than 2% of the solo self-employed workers are both dependent and involuntary. Both dependency and voluntariness are related to the fiscal and legal status of the solo self-employed workers and to the type of work activities. Solo self-employed workers that own their own business and who mainly sell products are less likely to be dependent and/or involuntary self-employed compared to those who do not own a business and/or offer services. Dependency is hardly related to the unfavourable outcomes of solo self-employment. Involuntariness, on the contrary, seems to have some impact on outcomes. Those who became self-employed because they couldn’t find a job as an employee have a higher probability to be unsatisfied with their job, to have financial problems or problems due to a lack of work or a low income. Nevertheless even among the involuntary solo self-employed workers, the majority does not report negative outcomes.

Het aandeel zelfstandigen in Nederland en dan met name zelfstandigen zonder personeel (zzp'ers) is de laatste jaren sterk toegenomen, veel sterker dan in andere Europese landen (Kösters, 2017). Momenteel is 12% van de werkzame beroepsbevolking zzp'er. Er is veel maatschappelijke discussie over de wenselijkheid van deze ontwikkeling. Zzp'ers worden door sommigen vooral gezien als ondernemers. Een groei van het aantal ondernemers is goed voor de economie omdat het voor meer werkgelegenheid en innovatie kan zorgen (Van Praag & Versloot, 2007; European Commission, 2015). Anderen wijzen erop dat mogelijk een deel  van de 'nieuwe' zzp'ers vooral werkzaamheden doen die ook door werknemers in loondienst kunnen worden gedaan, en vragen zich af of het dan echt wel om ondernemerschap gaat en er niet eerder sprake is van schijnzelfstandigheid (Zandvliet et al., 2013). Het gaat dan om werkenden die weliswaar geen werknemer zijn maar wel afhankelijk zijn van één opdrachtgever. Deze opdrachtgever fungeert feitelijk als de werkgever maar de risico's die behoren bij het werkgeverschap worden overgeheveld naar de zzp'er.  Dat kan ertoe leiden dat er een kwetsbare groep ontstaat die onvoldoende beschermd is tegen risico's gerelateerd aan gezondheid, ouderdom en arbeidsconflicten. Bovendien zijn er zorgen dat zzp'ers die sterk afhankelijk zijn van één opdrachtgever hier min of meer toe gedwongen zijn omdat men geen baan als werknemer kon vinden of omdat het werk bij de (voormalige) werkgever alleen gecontinueerd kon worden als zzp'er.