評論
打印
Buttonwood
梧桐樹
On their own
自力更生
What explains the surge in self-employment?
是什么樣的因素導致了自我雇傭現象激增呢？
PERHAPS the future belongs to the self-employed. Steady jobs, after all, are hard to find. The idea that a young graduate should expect to work for 40 years with the same employer until retirement seems quaintly dated.
或許，未來就是自我雇傭者的天地。畢竟，穩定的工作是很難找的。寄希望于一名年輕的畢業生只為一個雇主工作四十年直到退休，這樣的想法是真的過時了。
There has been a structural shift towards self-employment on both sides of the Atlantic as well as a cyclical one. In the fourth quarter of 2013, 90% of the new jobs created in Britain were classed as self-employment. Is the shift a sign of a thriving entrepreneurial spirit or an indicator of desperation? Are we talking Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook or Walter White and “Breaking Bad”?
在大西洋的東西兩岸，自我雇傭的情況均發生了結構性的轉變，并且這種變化是周期性的。2013年的第四季度中，英國90%的新工作崗位是被歸為自我雇傭類。這樣的轉變到底意味著一次創業精神的繁榮成長，還是預示著社會絕望感的產生呢？我們現在所面臨的情況到底是馬克·扎克伯格與他的網絡帝國Facebook，還是沃爾特·懷特與“絕命毒師”呢？
Answering the question is made harder by the limitations of the data, drawn as they are from a combination of surveys, tax records and registers of company creation. Some people may incorporate as a business in order to reduce their tax bill; others may fail to report their self-employment income as a way of avoiding taxes. Some may play dual roles, having a full-time job but earning money on the side. Still others may be working for their old employer as contractors, rather than for a salary.
基于數據的局限性，我們更加難以回答上述問題。前者通常是由問卷調查、繳稅記錄和公司注冊資料所構成的。一些人或許只是為了減少應交稅費而聯合成立公司；另一些人或許沒有報告登記自己的自我雇傭業務收入以逃避稅負。部分人或許同時扮演著兩種角色，既是一位有全職工作的人，同時也在其他方面賺取外快。還有其他一些人正在為自己的老雇主做事，但并不是以雇員的形式，而是以合約承包商的身份來工作。
Desperation must play a part. A paper by Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz found a close link between the unemployment rate in a given American locality and the rate of new business startups. A survey by the Kauffman Foundation found that the rate of new-business creation in America declined last year, even as the economy turned up; as the report comments, there was “less pressure on individuals to start businesses out of necessity”.
絕望感肯定是其中一個原因。來自加州大學圣克魯茲分校的羅伯特·費爾利的論文發現了在給定美國的地點關于失業率和新公司成立的比率的密切聯系。一份來自考夫曼基金會的調查結果顯示，就算在經濟復蘇的環境下，去年美國新公司成立的比率出現下降的情況。正如報告里所評論的一樣，“人們不太會覺得有創業的必要性”。
Self-employment may be more socially acceptable than it used to be. Middle-class people can call themselves consultants or freelancers, rather than unemployed. The businesses they create are unlikely to be the growth engines of the future. In Britain, by far the fastest growth in recent years has been in businesses that are one-man bands.
目前自我雇傭要比從前更容易被社會所接納。中產階級的人們能夠稱自己為咨詢顧問或者自由工作者而不是失業者。這樣的事業不太可能成為未來經濟增長的引擎。在英國，近幾年來增長最快的部門是在一人獨立公司。
The numbers also show self-employed Britons tend to be male, work longer hours than salaried employees and earn less. Indeed, the real wages of the self-employed fell faster than those in contractual employment between 2007 and 2012. This may help to explain why British productivity has grown only sluggishly in recent years. Setting up a new business involves a lot of time tracking down new clients or handling a host of issues that were previously dealt with by a company.
數字還顯示出自我雇傭的英國人大多為男性，工作的時間比全職工作的員工長而且賺得少。確實，2007年至2012年間，自我雇傭人的真實薪水要比合同制員工下降得更快。這或許能解釋為何英國近幾年的生產率只提高了一丁點。開創一個新的事業需要花費大量的時間去構建新的客戶網以及處理一堆事務，而這些事務本來是由公司去處理的。
The new self-employed are also older. British people aged 50 and above comprised five-sixths of the increase in the category between 2008 and 2012. And there has been a rise of 160,000 in the number of self-employed people aged 65 and over since 2007. Some of that may reflect the need to replace shortfalls in pension income.
此外，新晉自我雇傭的人們通常是年齡比較大的。英國50歲及以上的人在2008年至2012年間，構成了六分之五新增的自我雇傭人口。與此同時，自2007年起有160000位年齡在65及以上的人進入到自我雇傭的領域。上述的情況也許反映了退休金短缺所帶來的工作需求。
But these changes are not all negative. The rise of the service economy means it is easier for people aged 65 and over to find jobs that suit them; retirees are fitter than they would have been 40 years ago, when many had been through a long career in manual labour. Getting people to work for longer is the best way of dealing with the costs of an ageing population. In addition, a survey by the Royal Society of Arts suggests that the self-employed are happier than those in paid employment—independence counts for a lot, as does the feeling that one's work has meaning.
但這些轉變帶來的并不全是負面影響。服務業經濟的增長意味著年齡在65及以上的人更容易找到一份適合的工作；當退休人員已經進行了很長時間的體力勞動工作，他們現在要比40年前更適合從事服務業工作。讓人們工作的時間延長，是應對人口老齡化所帶來的社會福利成本問題的最好方法。除此之外，一份由皇家藝術學會所進行的調查顯示，自我雇傭人員要比全職上班的人更加開心-獨立所帶來的影響是深遠的，正如一個人認為工作是有意義時所帶來的感受一樣。
In the long run, this rise in self-employment will raise some interesting macroeconomic and political questions. Does it mean, as Morgan Stanley suggests in a research note, that the labour market is not as robust as it appears; that many people have been forced into self-employment and will happily take a paid job if offered one? That would imply there is still plenty of slack in the labour market and monetary policy can stay looser for longer.
長遠來看，在自我雇傭領域的增長會引起一些有趣的宏觀經濟和政治問題。正如摩根士丹利的一份研究報告所提到的，上述的增長是否意味著勞動力市場并不像其顯示出的一樣強健；如果被迫進入自我雇傭境地的人們得到一份全職工作，是否會很開心地選擇后者呢？這些問題的肯定將會顯示出勞動力市場依舊處于一個低迷時期，并且貨幣政策可以繼續在更長的時間里保持更為寬松的狀態。
But perhaps the structural trend means those paid jobs will not become available. If so, the economy may have created a vast reserve labour force, akin to the “spinsters” of early 19th-century Britain—single women who were paid piece rates for spinning textiles at home—or the dockers who used to mass outside port gates in the hope of being selected for a day's work. That would suggest an economy where wages are permanently kept under pressure and where profit margins remain high. Good news for the stockmarket perhaps, but not so good for the self-employed.
但也許這一結構性的趨勢意味著全職工作崗位不會出現空缺。如果真的如此，那經濟體或許已經制造了大量的勞動力儲備，類似于19世紀早期英國的“老姑娘”—單身女人在家進行紡織品制造而獲得計件工資---或者是碼頭工人們擁堵在港口大門處等待被挑選進入工作。這表示經濟體當中工資水平長期保持在高度壓榨的水平，同時利潤空間依然巨大。這對股市來說或許是好消息，但對自我雇傭者來說可就不是那么回事了。
