Of the 3,261,153 freelancers in Spain as of September 30, 2019, 1,978,541 they are autonomous individual (60.7%), that is, six out of ten. On the other hand, 39.3% of the self-employed are registered with some kind of society, that is, 1,282,612 people.
The profile of the freelancer in Spain as of September 2019 who has carried out the National Federation of Associations of Autonomous Workers, ATA, based on data from the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Social Security, it focuses on those 1,978,541 self-employed individual, that is, they are registered in Social Security with their ID and not with any type of corporate form.
One of the main data that highlights the analysis performed by ATA is that more and more self-employed workers consolidate their businesses and move on. So, practically seven out of ten freelancers, 67.9% have been leading their activity for more than three years, of which one in two, 56.1%, has been contributing to Social Security for more than five years as a freelancer. This percentage is higher than a year ago, when the percentage of freelancers who had been leading the business for more than three years was 66.7%.
Only 13.5% of the self-employed are less than one year old as a self-employed worker, a percentage that in September 2018 was 16.2%.
By sex and age
Despite the momentum that female entrepreneurship has been giving in recent years, autonomous women only represent 35.3% of the total group. That is, of the 1,978,541 self-employed individuals, 699,308 are women and 1,279,233 are men.
If you look at age of the self-employed, practically one in two are between 40 and 54 years old. And 28% are over 55 years old, a percentage higher than the 26.8% registered in 2018. Thus, more than seven out of ten freelancers (73.7%) of the self-employed natural person contributing to Social Security in June were over 40 years old. On the contrary, only 1.8% of the self-employed are under 25 years old.
If we analyze the evolution of the group during the first nine months of 2019 according to age, it is only the range of freelancers over 55 years old who are adding new self-employed contributors to the Special Scheme for Autonomous Workers (RETA). On the contrary, the biggest decrease is the one carried out by those under 25, who descend, so far this year, 6.1%.
As for the contribution base, the 85.5% of the self-employed individual is quoted for the minimum base, percentage that although very high is slightly lower than 85.9% in September 2018. In front of this percentage, only 0.7% of the total of self-employed persons has a contribution base that is more than three times the minimum base. Thus, there are 14.4% of self-employed individuals who have decided to contribute for a base higher than the minimum established by Social Security.
If we stop to analyze the evolution throughout 2019, it is verified how the freelancers are making an effort to try to increase, according to their possibilities, the contribution base. The self-employed who are listed by the minimum base descend while the other modalities register slight increases in relation to the number of contributors in December 2018.
Counting on the autonomous society, there are 1,143,302 self-employed people who contribute above the minimum base of € 944.
“The profile of the self-employed person shows a consolidation of the businesses run by the self-employed: practically seven out of ten have been in charge of their activity for more than three years and one in three trades above the minimum base of € 944”, says Lorenzo Amor, president of the National Federation of Associations of Autonomous Workers, ATA.
Only 6.3% of the self-employed individual combine their activity for another person (pluriactivity), a group that has increased 1.9% during 2019, growth that carries an important ascending line. In September 2018, the self-employed in pluriactivity represented 5.8% of the total of the group. As of September 30, there are 123,984 self-employed individuals who are listed in the General Regime and the Autonomous Regime.
As for the self-employed who register as a self-employed collaborator, that is, a relative of the titular self-employed worker who lives and works with him (he can be his spouse or a relative until the second degree of consanguinity), the number amounts to 198,552 , of which 88,299 are male and 110,253 female. The vast majority (81.3%) work in the services sector, particularly in trade and hospitality, which accounts for 76.4% of this sector.
As for the nationality of the self-employed, the number of those born outside our borders and who register in RETA continues to increase gradually, reaching 11.2% of the total number of self-employed. The growth rate is 5.6%, compared with the decrease of -1.5% of the self-employed of Spanish nationality until September 2019.
In which sectors do the self-employed work?
By sectors of activity, commerce, agriculture and construction, they concentrate 44.8% of the total number of self-employed individuals.
At the other extreme, real estate activities is the activity chosen by only 1.2% of the self-employed, 1.9% in communication, 2.1% financial activities, 2.5% for artistic and entertainment activities and 2.8% to the education sector.
Self-employed, job creators
Here it should be noted that of the two million self-employed individual, one in five (22.2%, 438,833 people) have at least one worker in their care.
So far this year, the self-employed have generated 32,761 net jobs, 58.3% lower than those generated in the first nine months of 2018, when the self-employed generated a total of 78,531 net jobs.
The self-employed who generate employment grow. The self-employed individual employers have increased by 1.1% (+4,729 self-employed employers) in the first nine months of 2019, a growth that contrasts with the decline of the self-employed individual without employees, which falls by -1, 3%.
Workers hired by freelancers also increase. As of September 30, 2019, there are already 911,740 salaried workers hired by a self-employed individual, which represents an increase of + 2.8% compared to December 2018.