Page 453 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS320 Tine Cordes et al.
to those of employees have relatively high shares of potential
dependent contractors compared to other indicators according to our
manual division.
a. Even if the contract between a dependent contractor and the
employing company is on the face of it a business contract, the job
is presumed to be carried out personally. The worker not being
able to hire an employee or a subcontractor to do the work
could be used when identifying a dependent contractor. Thus, the
question [having] employees not possible in field of work had a
relatively high share of potential dependent contractors, nearly
half. Even planning to hire an employee or subcontractor could on
the other hand disqualify from being a dependent contractor.
Clients want work carried out personally had a share of potential
dependent contractors higher than those who did not have the
indicator. Furthermore the indicators of not being a dependent
contractor, planning hiring employees and planning
subcontractors had very low shares of potential dependent
contractors.
b. The employing company controlling the business processes
(organizing or supervising the work) and having the right – even if
not exercising it – to define the content of the tasks, or prioritize
the sequence of them, and to make important decisions about the
operation may also be useful in capturing dependency. If the work
of the self-employed is integrated into the business of the
employing company rather than being peripheral to it, so the self-
employed might be operationally dependent on the employing
company. Almost half of those in the test group who had no/little
influence on order of assignments were potential dependent
contractors according to the manual check.
5. When looking at the income and turnover of potential dependent
contractors, it is not very likely that dependent contractors are
particularly more vulnerable than the rest of the test group (own-
account workers), regardless of operationalization. The test group as a
whole is relatively vulnerable compared to other self-employed, and
the vulnerable workers are likely to be present among both dependent
contractors and own-account workers.

4.2. Summing up and further work
As regards the process of operationalizing the concept of dependent
contractors in an economic setting like the Danish one, it seems like a good
starting point to divide the test group into potential dependent contractors
and unlikely dependent contractors. Doing this enabled us to better assess the

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