Attitudes, Expectations and Labour Market Behaviour: The Case of Self-Employment in the UK Construction Industry

Self-Employed Workers: Calling the Shots or Hesitant Independents? A Consideration of the Trends

“…Indeed 70 percent would prefer to remain self-employed. Consistent with evidence reported elsewhere (Fraser and Gold, 2001;Nisbet and Thomas, 2000) significant proportions of the selfemployed appear to have converted to this status despite initial reluctance or catalysts that might be interpreted as representing constrained choice.…”

The evolution of false self-employment in the British construction industry: a neo-Polanyian account of labour market formation

“…Employment in the construction sector in Europe and the UK traditionally consists of a large number of self-employed persons. Such an employment practice reflects the seasonality of construction work and cyclical economic demand that make a certain amount of flexibility for peak and slack periods mandatory for both public and private companies (Nisbet, 1997(Nisbet, , 2007Nisbet and Thomas, 2000). Self-employment is arguably a legal form of engagement of labour to match contractual or seasonal fluctuations in demand, while minimizing the economic risk of surplus labour during slack periods and reflecting an industry organization around individual, daily hired workers, traditionally known as the lump (Clarke, 1992;Evans, 1990).…”

False self‐employment: the case of Ukrainian migrants in London's construction sector

“…These migrant construction workers include EU and non-EU migrants, who tend to enter into lower-skilled jobs within subcontracted employment arrangements (Buckley et al, 2016). Employment in the construction sector has traditionally consisted of large numbers of self-employed workers, a reflection of the cyclical and seasonal nature of the business sector (Behling and Harvey, 2015;Nisbet and Thomas, 2000). Recently, especially before the current economic downturn, the sector had experienced an expansion, accompanied by skill shortages and increased recruitment requirements, conditions that could be interpreted as 'pull' factors for temporary migrants.…”