We ended 2016 with more than 3 million freelancers in Spain. Concretely, there were 3,191,291 the autonomous registered in the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers. Of them, 61% are individuals and 38.2% have some type of society.
If there is an especially remarkable fact is that 86% of the self-employed contribute by the minimum basis. This is €893.10 in 2017. It is clear that this type of contribution gives us more profit margin, but beware! There are some disadvantages when contributing for the minimum basis. Above all, the guarantees and the amount of sickness, invalidity, maternity and retirement benefits are minimized. But, what is the average profile of all these people?
Well, let’s begin, most self-employed are men, 62.5%. Women remain being a minority but still grew by 1.3% during 2016. The most common age among our self-employed (47.5%) is between 40 and 54 years. In addition, one of every 4 self-employed (23.8%) work is in commercial sector, followed by the agriculture sector with 11.95% of the self-employed. That is, the average profile of the self-employed is a male between 40 and 54 years old, who works in commercial activity.
We can not end without mentioning another relevant fact, during 2016 self-employed generated 70,490 jobs net, 4% more than the previous year. Let’s hope this trend keep growing.
Those numbers can be improved, but registering as a self-employed means paying a monthly fee and quarterly taxes, in addition to the expenses derived from the activity. In many cases it is difficult to face these costs with the income generated.
