The Gig Work Guidebook helps the reader form a comprehensive understanding of self-employment and the responsibilities, opportunities and challenges related to it. The Guidebook introduces different dimensions of self-employment and light entrepreneurship and provides information on the establishment of a company, social security and occupational well-being. N.B. By clicking the plus icons in the navigation bar you will find more topics.
This guide is intended particularly for students of higher education in Finland who are about to move into the working life, but anyone interested in these topics can benefit from this information. You can find further information and details by following the links to the websites of various officials and service providers.
You can experiment with self-employment and light entrepreneurship already during your studies even if you end up making your career in an employment relationship. In the long term, completing your degree is essential for succeeding in the working life. Still, working while studying to a convenient extent gives you valuable experience and professional contacts. Light entrepreneurship is also a good way to keep up a touch with working if you happen to become unemployed for a while.
In this Guidebook, the term entrepreneur refers to a self-employed person. In Finnish statistics, the category of self-employed people includes sole entrepreneurs, self-employed workers, freelancers working without a Business ID, and grant recipients. Light entrepreneurs are not categorised as self-employed, although, in practice, they do employ themselves. In this Guidebook, the term light entrepreneur refers to a person who does not have a registered company. Therefore, light entrepreneurs and freelancers have much in common.
The English version of the Guidebook is a translation from Finnish. There are some differences in the Finnish and English terminology related to the topics addressed in the Guidebook and therefore, the same terms may be used in slightly different meanings in different contexts. Some of the most essential terms are explained in the Terminology Guide.
The Guidebook examines the topics in the Finnish context. Although things such as taxation are explained in detail, some contextual background knowledge that is known to readers who are familiar with the Finnish society may not be explicit in the Guidebook text. This information can be found online as many Finnish authorities provide information in English.
The links provided in the Guidebook lead to English information unless stated otherwise.
The Gig Work Guidebook was compiled as part of the PIRSSI – Towards the Fragmented Work Life project: https://projects.tuni.fi/pirssi-en/
Limit values of YEL and ALV checked up on English language pages on January 2022.