The number of people working for themselves has shot up over the past ten years, from 200,000 in 2002 to 728,000 in 2012, according to the central statistics agency CBS.

Most of these freelancers, known as zzp’ers, work in the service sector, with the number working in agriculture and fishery dropping sharply.
According to figures from the Chamber of Commerce, many freelancers only survive for a few years. Of the those who set up a business in 2007, nearly half have already stopped.