Workers on the Border between Employment and Self-employment∗

The number of workers on the border between self-employment and employment has strongly increased across Europe over the last decade. This paper investigates whether and in what respect these workers differ from employees and self-employed, and analyses whether these work relationships are a stepping stone to more stable employment in the short-run using Italian data. Depending on the data source, the “para-subordinates” represent between 1.8 percent and 5.3 percent of the Italian labor force. Since most of them work only for one company and are strongly integrated into the firm of the contract partner, we argue that labor and social security law discriminates against these workers whose status is in fact very close to employees. We find that they are not low-qualified workers, but young, highly educated professionals. At the same time these contracts seem not to be a port of entry into the labor market nor do we find that they are a vehicle to more stable jobs. However, they are a possibility for women to work part-time.