The Chancellor is expected to announce government measures to support the self-employed during the coronavirus outbreak later today. Professor Chris Warhurst from the Warwick Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick comments that supporting this group of workers is more complicated than it might first appear.

Professor Warhurst says: “The number of self-employed has been rising over the past decade in the UK and are now an important staple of the UK economy and so need to be taken seriously by the government in its response to the coronavirus. Many, however, are not the traditional self-employed; indeed before the virus hit there were concerns about bogus-self-employment and dependent contractors lacking any rights. Many of these workers are therefore hard to classify and identify so reaching out to them is difficult.”

26 March 2020

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