'Self-Employment' Phenomenon : The Situation in Some European Countries

The purpose of the paper is to analyze and present the self-employment needs in some European countries, being the result of a survey realized in Austria, Finland, Poland and Romania in the Leonardo da Vinci program “ Self-Employment - Guidance and Counselling for Self-Employment”. The aim of the project was to identify the location and the value of guidance and counselling services addressed to people considering self-employment. The first part of the paper is focused on the main characteristics of the respondent’s self- employed situation. Main data analyzed are: business outline, location, time dedicated to work, outsourcing, consistency between private and professional life.The second part deals with the motivation and the advantages of being self-employed, as well as how the self-employed see themselves compared with employees and owners of small enterprises. It also contains the respondents’ business plans analyze. The third part of the paper is focused on the support measures received by the self-employment persons, their experiences regarding the training and counselling available for them, and also their assessment of how these support measures met their needs.The final part of the paper tries to identify the strengths and the weaknesses of the self-employment phenomenon in the four countries