Last year, almost a quarter of the self-employed in the European Union (EU) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Comparing with 2020, this was the only layer of professionals that suffered a deterioration in the situation of poverty, increasing from 22.6% to 23.6%. And Portugal is the second country with the highest rate, at 32.4%.

According to a report by ECO, the national percentage increased from 2020 to 2021 by two percentage points, aggravating the at-risk-of-poverty situation of self-employed workers. This is the highest rate in the last six years, according to data published by Eurostat.

Only Romania has a more worrying rate than Portugal, situated at 70.8%, having increased by 5.1 percentage points compared to the percentage calculated in 2020.

Estonia completes the list of the three EU countries with the highest risk of poverty and social exclusion rates among self-employed workers, with a value very similar to Portugal (32.2%).

By contrast, the poverty situation of self-employed workers has improved in 11 EU countries, with Ireland and Hungary recording the largest decline in these rates (a drop of 3.2 and 3.7 percentage points, respectively).

The Czech Republic (7.4%), Hungary (7.7%) and Cyprus (9.5%) are, in turn, the countries where the risk of poverty or social exclusion for the self-employed is less expressive.

Overall, the at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion rates for the unemployed, pensioners and employees of the European Union decreased by 1.6, 0.6 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively.