Self-employment as a career option

Self-employment is a term used to describe people who work for themselves. The person who is self-employed are their own boss as they have set up their own business and are making money from that business.

There are many advantages to being self-employed. A self-employed person will:

• be their own boss and make all their own decisions for the business.

• keep the profits for themselves and therefore will work hard to earn more profit.

• have flexible working hours and therefore can take holidays/time off when it suits themselves.

• have great job satisfaction as they take delight in watching their business grow and working at something they feel passionately about.

• be able to try out new ideas and see them grow and develop through the business.

However there are many disadvantages to being self-employed. In some cases,

• self-employment can involve very long working hours and so a person may find they have very little time for their family and miss out on social occasions.

• the owner may not be an expert in all areas of the business and so they may make bad decisions that could lose the business money.

• there may be difficulty with cash-flow in the business which could affect the owner’s personal finances.

• income from self-employment may not be the same every month, therefore there may be times in the year when the self-employed person has very little income.

• the self-employed person may be too inexperienced to take on the responsibility of all that a business entails and so by making too many mistakes, the business may never really get off the ground.