As per EU survey released recently, 12% of EU citizens were currently involved in entrepreneurial activity, among which 4% percent of them are still in the initial phase, i.e. taking the necessary steps to start up a business, 3% were running a new business and 6% were running an established business.
Within the EU, the employment variations regarding employment preferences were very drastic. With 25% and 19%, respectively,Finland and Cyprus had the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity. Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia, on the other hand, had entrepreneurship rates below 10%.
Reasons for opting employee status or self employment
- 4 in 10 EU citizens referred “regular and fixed income” and 35% mentioned “stability of employment” as the reasons for preferring employment status. Across all of the surveyed countries, most of the respondents in Turkey and Hungary (75% and 70%, respectively)a regular, fixed income (vs. an irregular, variable income) was being cited as a reason.
- Respondents in eastern European countries opiniated some other constraints such as lack of finances or lack of an appropriate business idea to be a major reason, which varied from their counterparts in all other countries.
- But interestingly, a large majority of EU citizens who expressed a preference for self-employment, due to reasons such as personal freedom, independence, achieving self satisfaction by following personal interest (mentioned by 68%) or freedom to choose their own place and time of work (35%).Entrepreneurship rates in the EU were higher for men, younger interviewees, 25-54 year-olds, those with higher levels of education and respondents with an entrepreneurial family background.