Self-employed workers’ lobby the Federation of Small Businesses has revealed that very high numbers of individuals are presently taking the plunge and choosing self-employment. Nearly a third of a million will begin working for themselves in 2010. Of course, this is in no small part a result of the present deep recession, with many redundancies and thousands of workers working part-time, and vacancies regularly being competed for by hundreds of candidates. And yet, let’s think of the bottle being half-full, now is an ideal time to work for yourself, as Internet business can be utilized as a cheap publicity channel for the goods or services you offer. This can also allow you to work from home without the overheads of establishing a workshop or office.

There exist countless ideas for working as a sole trader, using your existing skillset or perhaps teaching yourself additional ones for instance in the various online jobs that are now available in Internet business. Not all business start-ups necessitate a huge amount of money. In one instance a guy had the idea of rescuing abandoned shopping trolleys from numerous places and selling them back to the original supermarkets. Initial capital needed, practically nothing. And for people who work from home, expenses like travel costs might in reality be lower than if they took the car or train to work.

You should be sceptical about a number of purportedly self-employed jobs that could in fact be a scam. You will see certain examples in the online jobs listings that may be simply businesses seeking means of avoiding the costs of taking somebody on the payroll. In one example I saw, a debt collection agency was looking for self-employed debt collectors. You only got paid if you succeeded in getting debtors to pay their debts, and interestingly, they made no mention of the amount the company would pay you, signifying to me that it was a pretty low amount. I was not sufficiently curious to make further enquiries.

Neither do you necessarily count as self-employed just because you work from home. My last employer in Charing Cross had workers who worked at home in other parts of the country. You only ever saw these people in the office for one or two meetings, and yet they were still company employees and were paid a salary. To work for yourself, you have to be able to choose your own hours and what work you do. For instance, in an Internet business role like search engine optimization you will get paid on successful projects, not on an hourly rate.

Self-employment may not suit all. Many prefer to be inspired and supervised by a boss in a routine managed environment, while dreaming of the big lottery win. When you work from home or in an office where you’re the boss then you are not under anyone else’s orders, and it is essential to be a self-starter. There is no short cut to getting rich quick. But many employees feel frustration that they arrive at a glass ceiling at work. The top people are the Managing Director’s friends or sons. You will never be one of them. Work for yourself in online jobs or any other business idea, and you may with effort become extremely successful and realise your full potential.

Sole traders need to deal with their own book-keeping and tax affairs, and it is advisable to hire a dependable tax adviser. A lot of things can be offset against tax as expenses. In addition it is important to take out insurance against illness, because there is no one there to give you sick pay.

Overall, however, the benefits of working for yourself far exceed the negative points. The majority of people who have taken the plunge say they don’t ever want to go back to being an employee. It is worth anybody’s while to consider seriously.