30.6 million people aged 15 to 64 in the European Union (EU) were self-employed in 2016, accounting for 14 percent of total employment, according to the latest statistics released by Eurostat.
Across the EU Member States, almost one in every three people in employment in Greece was self-employed in 2016 (29 percent), and around one in five in Italy (21 percent) and Romania, as well as Poland (18 percent), on a par with the Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic, above the 14 percent average registered in the EU.
At the opposite end of the scale, the self- employed accounted for less than 10 percent of total employment in Denmark (8 percent), Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg and Sweden (all 9 percent).
At EU level, the self-employed profile is the following: two out of three were men (67 percent), over half (55 percent) were aged 45 or over, about a third (35 percent) had tertiary education and 7 in10 (71 percent) were own account owners (they had no employees).
Most of the self-employed worked in one of the following economic areas in 2016: “Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles” (4.8 million people, or 16 percent of all self-employed in the EU), “Agriculture, forestry and fishing” (4.4 million, 14 percent), “Construction” (3.9 million, 13 percent) and “Professional, scientific and technical activities” (3.7 million, 12 percent).