Poll finds lack of interest in self-employment

DESPITE the ravages of the recession, Irish people are not overly keen to become their own bosses, according to two new international surveys on entrepreneurship.

One of the surveys, conducted by the European Commission, claims that the percentage of Irish- based professionals who would like to be self-employed has fallen from 63% to 49% in the past decade. That means that the fall-off in the willingness to go solo, in business terms, became active while the Celtic Tiger era was still live and is not a simple consequence of the economic meltdown.

The EC survey, however, showed that the spirit of entrepreneurship is far from dead here. It ranked Ireland as still being one of the strongest markets in Europe for independently -minded business people, stating that the 49% of people that like the idea of being self-employed still ranks higher than the EU average of 45%.