Boosting Skills Development for Independent Professionals and The Self-Employed

Boosting Skills Development for Independent Professionals and The Self-Employed - EFIP Common Position Paper -

General Considerations Unlike entrepreneurs who reply on a big idea, perhaps one that will change the world, independent professionals and the self-employed’s primary value rests on their skills. Clients hire them for their skill-set, and it is their task to deliver the project based on their talent.

The only way independent professionals can grow their business and keep on remaining competitive is through continuously improving their skills. Independent professionals and self-employed people should be encouraged to engage in professional development by considering their specific training needs and providing funding through the form of tax concessions, subsidies, vouchers or selfemployed mentoring schemes.

EFIP believes that training for micro-business creation and support should be included into local economic development strategies in the EU, making full use of the European Structural Funds above all the European Social Fund. Most current workforce development programs in Europe focus on job training and job placement, overlooking the opportunities that self-employment offer, above all to unemployed and underemployed populations. These workforce development and unemployed programs should expand their offerings to include self-employment and micro-business support and training.

In addition, independent professionals and the self-employed should have the same right to access training programs and training incentives as employees have. In addition, they should be able to choose between a broad range of training offers themselves without the public sector to limit their choices. Training programs should have minimum bureacracy for both the trainee and the training provider; they should favour delivery through web technologies and not require a minimum number of attendees.

Policy Recommendations Against this backdrop, the EU should: 

Ensure self-employment and entrepreneurship are on the curriculum at primary and secondary level schools. Young students should be equipped with the knowledge and skills to decide whether they wish to enter traditional employment, or work for themselves.

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Ensure careers advice recognises self-employment and entrepreneurship as an option within vocational and higher education and not only be limited to those studying specific courses on business and management.

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Create a business-led self-employed mentoring scheme. This can be done in coworking spaces and business incubators, with the Enterprise Europe Network overseeing a single portal with details of businesses that wish to provide mentoring.

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Ensure that EURES national coordinators and other employment agencies in the Member States nominate a “Self-Employment Adviser” dedicated to actively point job-seekers towards becoming self-employed, rather than only entering an employment relationship. This is particularly relevant for selected groups such as recent graduates, working mothers and the recently retired.

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Support a certification and accreditation scheme for self-employed that could provide market advantage, rather than an exclusive right to practice.

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Create entrepreneurship training programs to help micro-businesses establish effective practices for managing their finances holistically, cultivating diverse revenue streams and managing periodic income volatility.

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Further develop and strengthen the European Alliance for Apprenticeships, launched by DG Employment in July 2013, to foster the exchange of information and best-practices between European countries.

About the European Forum of Independent Professionals (EFIP) EFIP is a European not-for-profit collaboration of national associations which represents over 11 million of independent professionals at EU level through targeted research and advocacy.

Independent professionals (often referred to as freelancers or contractors) are highly-skilled selfemployed workers without employers nor employees. They offer specialised services of an intellectual and knowledge-based nature and work on a flexible basis in a range of creative, managerial, scientific and technical occupations. With a 45% increase since 2004, they are the fastest growing segment of the EU labour market.

EFIP mission is to strive for European policy, business and social environment to become more conducive to the independent and self-employed way of working, in both the private and public sectors.

More information about EFIP is available on our Website, our Manifesto and our Campaign.

Contact Marco Torregrossa Secretary General 2|P a g e

European Forum of Independent Professionals Avenue de l’Opale 124 box 6 B-1030 Brussels (Belgium) +32.486.71.30.26 marco.torregrossa@efip.org www.efip.org EU Transparency Register N.: 823591710024-95

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