Aussie workers moonlighting as entrepreneurs

By Oonagh Reidy

Australian workers are proving to be an innovative bunch with a huge proportion moonlighting as micro-entrepreneurs.

Micro-entrepreneurship is on the rise with almost half of Australians surveyed admitting to flogging their wares or services on eBay, Gumtree, Facebook and Airtasker.

Generation Y appear to be leading the way as self-starters with almost one in five planning to start their own business in the not so distant future.

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That’s according to NAB’s Rethink Success white paper Working for Success in the Digital Age, which reveals one in four working Australians are self-employed, while one in seven who are in paid employment are aspiring business owners.

A huge chunk of current small business owners now see themselves as innovative ‘entrepreneurs’ running ‘start-ups’, the white paper also shows.

The average Australian worker has changed careers close to twice already, and 35 per cent have made this switch in the last five years, the NAB white paper also shows.

More surprising is the number of people who have pledged cash to crowd fund start-ups over the past 12 months – one in 10 – although that figure doubles among Generation Z (those born between mid-1990s to early 2000s).

The research comes as it emerged the numbers in full-time work fell almost 45,000 in December. However, the number of part-time jobs rose by 13,500.