Self-employment in Austria. Structure, Income, and the Impact of the COVID-19-Crisis

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis and the regulatory closure measures on self-employed workers is evident both in the declining number of self-employed workers and in the drop in sales and income. The impact cannot be quantified at this time due to a lack of data, but can be estimated by relying on data showing the distribution of self-employment income and the structure of households dependent on such income before the crisis. In 2017, about one-fifth of the population depended on self-employment income, more than half of them moderately to heavily. The polarisation of those dependent on self-employment income in the lower and upper income segments suggests that the COVID-19 crisis is likely to further exacerbate existing inequalities within the self-employed group.