Bogus self-employment - who pays the price?
With more companies are seemingly encouraging staff to be self-employed rather than on the payroll, we discover the economic and personal costs.
As the government鈥檚 flagship Employment Rights Act (2025) comes into force, File on 4 Investigates a loophole worrying experts: bogus self-employment. We discover hundreds of workers on government contracts are said to be wrongly classified as self-employed. This we are told is the tip of the iceberg as more employers increasingly choose to put workers on self-employed contracts rather than employing them as staff, without all the rights, bolstered under the new laws.
Some are suggesting that recent changes to National Insurance have meant more business owners are keeping workers off payroll to keep running costs down. We will look at small businesses where it鈥檚 become increasingly difficult to employ staff in the traditional way and find that some workers in hospitality for example like the flexibility that job apps can give them when picking up casual freelance work.
Presenter: Tom Wall
Producer: Rob Byrne
Technical producer: Cameron Ward
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott
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Why is the rise in bogus self-employment a problem for all of us?
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Broadcasts
- Tue 3 Mar 2026 20:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Wed 4 Mar 2026 11:00麻豆社 Radio 4
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File on 4 Investigates
File on 4 Investigates: News-making original journalism.
