This project analyses the situation of the «new self-employed» in Switzerland. It considers not only the different forms of individually and collectively coping with and overcoming the social risks and problems inherent in this type of employment but also the related opportunities and «best practices» for achieving success.
The socio-political visions of the 1990s included the idea of highly qualified “new self-employed persons”. Active in “avant-gardist sectors” like IT, the arts and culture, and media, these individuals, so the vision, would contribute to the growth and flourishing of an inexorably spreading “knowledge society”, notabene at their own account and risk. Since the millennium, however, it has become apparent that besides unsuspected opportunities this new form of employment in the growing services sector bears considerable and as yet unclearly defined risks. This project analyses the situation of “the new self- employed” in Switzerland. It considers not only the different forms of individually and collectively coping with and overcoming the social risks and problems inherent in this type of employment, but also the related opportunities and “best practices” for achieving success. Research investigates and compares industry sectors and occupational fields with a high proportion of “new self-employed persons”, such as IT, media, the arts and culture.