Self-employment 

The rise in self-employment is not down to a resurgent enterprise culture, but is based on part-time “odd jobbers” desperate to avoid unemployment, concludes a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

It found that by the autumn of 2011, self-employment had reached a record level of 4.14 million.

However, the additional self-employed are unlike self-employed people as a whole in terms of gender, hours of work, occupation and sector of employment, with those performing unskilled occupations accounting for more than 20% of the net increase.