Spain's self-employed work longer hours and almost 50% do not take a summer break

The Spanish government's flagship measure to reduce the working week to 37.5 hours will not affect 'autónomos' at all, but they will have to apply that reduction for their employees

Lucía Palacios

Madrid

Monday, 22 July 2024, 16:00

Being self-employed can bring freedom, but most 'autónomos' in Spain have no fixed timetable for their working day, take few days off, and rarely take long holidays. They are one of the groups of workers to work the longest hours because their income depends directly on them, on their businesses and their activities. Thus, if an employee works 35 hours a week on average, the self-employed work more than 42 hours per week on average, according to data from the latest Labour Force Survey (EPA). Furthermore, the national Spanish government's headline measure for employment, that of reducing the working day from 40 hours to 37.5, will not have a direct impact on their working hours, although it will have an impact on their businesses if they have employees as they will have to apply this reduction to their staff.

As such the self-employed can continue to work very long hours, typically over eight hours a week more than the rest of the workforce, including from Monday to Sunday on many occasions as this new maximum limit of work hours does not apply to them. Consequently, they are also the only group that does not have to keep a record of their working hours, as the rest must, but they do have to keep track of the hours their employees work. When the new law comes into force it will have to be managed electronically and they will not be able to do it by hand as is currently allowed.

In addition to long, often tough working hours, the self-employed take far less holiday than other workers. Taking a full month off is usually a thing of dreams for them and, in fact, almost half of them will not take any break this summer. To be precise, four out of ten (40.1%) say that they will not take even just a few days off this summer. Of these, 14.9% do not do so because they cannot afford it financially, 16.5% because how they run their business makes it impossible and 8.7% say that their business increases in summer and they cannot take a few days off, but will do so at another time of the year, according to data prepared by the Association of Self-Employed Workers (ATA).

In contrast, of the 58% of entrepreneurs surveyed who will take a break during these summer months, 26.9% say that, despite being on holiday, it will be impossible for them to disconnect from their business and 22% say that they will take fewer days off than they would prefer. Therefore, they are in the minority, just 9.1%, those self-employed people who will be lucky enough to take a few days off and completely disconnect.

Switching off is tough

Despite this issue with little real disconnection from work, practically two thirds of the self-employed (62% of the total) are satisfied with having started their own business; 34.2% are even very satisfied. Only 8.1% regret it and admit that they are not at all satisfied with their 'job'.

What they are most happy with is not being accountable to anyone and 33.5% see the main advantage of their business as the autonomy that being their own boss gives them, followed by the personal fulfilment and growth it brings (24.4%) and the vocation, an option chosen by 20.3% of the self-employed in the survey.

Too much bureaucracy

Turning to the downsides, one in three of those surveyed (35.1%) indicated that the biggest disadvantage they see in being self-employed is the issue of paying taxes, followed by issues related to the paperwork and bureaucracy they have to deal with on a daily basis, an option chosen by 19% of entrepreneurs, and the lack of profitability, which was the answer given by 14.6%.

Precisely because of all these obstacles, very few - only 9.7% - deal personally with all the formalities involved in their business, while 86.3% make use of a third party business agency (gestoría) or accounting practice (asesoría) to deal with all this bureaucracy.

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