The rise of the Gig economy

[eek]

Yes its the Daily Telegraph but this is what any tax system needs to be based upon

The self-employed will overtake the public sector with the ‘gig economy’ - Telegraph

[SueEllen]

Thing is the public sector bill won't decrease as the public sector uses lots of freelancers.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

"there will be a big constituency for politicians who offer the self-employed the kind of tax and welfare changes that make their lives easier."

Can we just send this to every MP and then sit back and wait whilst our lives get easier - if they think there's a vote in it perhaps they'll have a rethink about some of HMRC's latest brainwaves

[BrilloPad]

According to HMRC, self-employed=tax evader.

[seanraaron]

The writer of that piece seems to be leaping to some false conclusions there. Certainly in regards to the public sector you'll be seeing more fixed term contracts because the councils cannot afford to have a fixed number of full-time positions so they need to be able to dump workers without notice as budgets see fit; it neatly avoids dealing with union rules as well regarding notice periods and such.

For skilled professions like IT where you can command more income there's a more obvious attraction, but for most workers, contracting probably isn't going to be something they choose. In the States a shift towards fixed-term contracts and rolling contracts took place starting in the 90s, where the savings to corporations were obvious with no upside for staff who found themselves forced to choose between non-permanent status or no job and having to pay full-freight for health insurance (if you could qualify).

Can't say I see anything to celebrate here, really and as has been noted by others I rather doubt we'll see either a union mentality take hold to leverage the numbers or voluntary movements from politicians motivated by vote buying. The silver lining is the presence of a still (somewhat) robust welfare system and employment laws, though if an EU exit is on the cards that could change.

[SueEllen]

Watch something yesterday - in short the UK won't be allowed to leave the EU as they will make us have referendums until we vote the "right" way.

So we should all vote "No" until we get what we want. The problem is I blame UK politicians, past and present, for not changing benefit rules.

[SussexSeagull]

Actually I think the more forward thinking people on the left are realising that their natural power base, the public sector, is shrinking and they need to get support from other areas of society, of which self employed is the fastest growing (Jeremy Corbyn mentioning the self employed in his conference speech was very interesting).

The Conservatives seem rather slow to adjust, however.

[jamesbrown]

Actually I think the more forward thinking people on the left are realising that their natural power base, the public sector, is shrinking and they need to get support from other areas of society, of which self employed is the fastest growing (Jeremy Corbyn mentioning the self employed in his conference speech was very interesting).

The Conservatives seem rather slow to adjust, however.

Support in the sense that they'd like to buy our votes for a massive increase in tax and regulation, but possibly for some additional employee-type benefits.

What irritates me about much of the discussion on self-employment is that it centres around increasing our "rights", akin to those that an employee might have. It isn't aided by some in our industry advocating for that. What rights, FFS, beyond those stated in our contracts? The problem with talking about the "self-employed" is that it's a group of people with little more coherence than the population at large.

[seanraaron]

True. I mean I don't care about tax avoidance, but the money is a lot better in contracting. If I could make an extra £10-15k in a permanent gig, contracting wouldn't be worth doing for me.

The fact that it's not exactly a lifestyle choice for many but a necessity makes the idea of treating "self-employed" contractors as a group a bit silly. Given the choice I bet a lot would rather have the stability of a permanent job, so doing something to discourage the practice of contracting for what would normally be permanent positions would make more sense than promising better tax treatment or whatever.

[mudskipper]

Given the choice I bet a lot would rather have the stability of a permanent job...

What makes you think that?