From Covid-19 to collapse? The self-employed and the cost of living crisis

Robert Blackburn, Stephen Machin and Maria Ventura

CEP Covid-19 Analyses from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: The sixth LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed was undertaken in November 2022 and found that the downward trend in income levels of the self-employed reported in May 2022 has continued. The cost of living crisis is hitting small businesses particularly hard, with the increase in energy prices and other output costs compounding the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Another concern facing the self-employed is their relatively low levels of pension provision - almost three quarters do not make contributions to a personal pension scheme. The self-employed do manage to sustain their activities even in difficult economic conditions but the series of shocks encountered over the past three years is fully testing their resilience. Consequently, we have observed a recent exodus of the self-employed. This analysis suggests that the exodus will continue, even among the most robust enterprises given the scale of challenges.

Keywords: Covid-19; self-employed; cost of living crisis; pensions gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-02-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepcvd:cepcovid-19-029

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