Fine line between employed and self-employed in Spain

DURING 2019’s second quarter the INE national statistics institute reclassified 143,500 workers who initially described themselves as self-employed.

These included business-owners who originally claimed that they had no salaried workers but later admitted that they were employers.

The second-quarter figures were lower than those of the first quarter when INE detected 152,700 “false” self-employed.

Compared with the second-quarter figures for 2018, the number of reclassified self-employed fell by 26.5 per cent when inspections detected 195,200 cases.

During this year’s second quarter, INE recorded 98,700 independent workers and business-owners without employees who worked almost exclusively for one client but worked for others when the opportunity arose.

Again, this was lower than the first quarter’s 104,400, which in turn was lower than the 112,300 detected during same period last year.

This number was also lower than self-employed workers who admitted working for only one client and, statistically speaking, were employees.

According to Spain’s acting Minister of Labour, Magdalena Valerio, it was particularly important to regulate the delivery workers for internet firms who were so often obliged to register as “false” self-employed.