Earned income of the self-employed in 2010 – The “traditional” self-employed earn seven times more than auto-entrepreneurs

At the end of 2010 in France, there were almost 2.3 million self-employed people in all the non-agricultural sectors. 15% of them are auto-entrepreneurs, a proportion that has doubled in one year. In 2010, the “traditional” self-employed earned an average of €35,900. The legal professions earned in excess of €100,000 annually, while hairdressers declared only €15,000. Auto-entrepreneurs, meanwhile, earned an average of €5,180 from their self-employed activity. Between 2009 and 2010, average income fell by 3.4% in constant euros for all self-employed people as a whole, due to the sharp rise in the number of auto-entrepreneurs with low incomes. It increased by 4.2% for the “traditional” self-employed, meanwhile. Construction was the exception to this positive trend, with a fall in income for the third consecutive year.