Who are the freelancers of Europe? How do they live and work in the different countries of the European Union? How many of them choose to be freelancers and how many simply have no alternative? What are their needs and expectations? How do they deal with the uncertain, precarious nature of freelance work?

These are some of the questions that i-WIRE, the first European-wide survey of freelancers, is meant to answer.

Our colleague Sarah de Heusch, a project officer and advocate at SMart has recently forwarded us this survey for autonomous workers. If you’re a freelancer working in Europe, please take the survey here. We also encourage everyone to share the links in their networks.

Sarah de Heusch: The i-wire project is currently disseminating a survey addressed to freelancers and broadly autonomous workers (that is self-employed or salaried through coops or other) that are skilled and that work in the service sector, in traditional professions governed by professional orders and rolls, but also for those active in new professions that lack such established structures.

The project analyses trends on new autonomous workers and prospects best practices of Unions, Quasi-unions and Labour Market Intermediaries regarding representation of autonomous workers across Europe. More info here: http://www.i-wire.eu/.

I-wire stands for “Independent Workers and Industrial relations in Europe” it is an European-wide project, co-financed by the European Commission and lead by Università degli Studi di Milano & Université de Liège (LENTIC lab), together with partner universities (check here to see them all), and in partnership with ACTA, SMart and UPTA.

Link to the questionnaire is here http://www.i-wire.eu/survey/. There is one questionnaire per country, make sure you pick the right one.

Thank you for supporting the project by answering the questionnaire!