Would-be Entrepreneurs

September 17 2016 - Baby Boomers and Gen Y are leading a movement to abandon the corporate rat race and create start-ups allowing them to become their own boss, according to a report by KPMG Demographer, Bernard Salt.

The report was commissioned by the National Broadband Network (nbn) which connects more than 3 million homes and businesses around Australia and aims to give everyone access by 2013. The Small Business, Big Thinking: The entrepreneurialism of the Aussie workforce report looks at how access to fast broadband and 'digitally-disruptive technologies' have encouraged new entrepreneurs and are driving a shift away from big businesses.

Bernard Salt found that small and micro businesses are forming Australia's fastest growing employment sector. More than 285 new start-ups are created every week in a range of entrepreneurial hotspots including:

• Riverstone, New South Wales
• Frankston, Victoria
• Aspley, Queensland
• Mandurah, Western Australia
• Hobart, Tasmania
• Victor Harbor, South Australia

According to Bernard Salt:

"Australians are now empowered to run their business from wherever they want to, access customers from all over the world, and to disrupt traditional business models with their innovations, their ideas and their drive.

"Nationwide access to fast broadband and new technologies such as virtual reality and high-definition video conferencing are driving an 'entrepreneurialism' of the Aussie workforce as people reinvent themselves as consultants in their field of expertise, or take the plunge by starting that 'big' small business idea that they had always dreamed of.

"Gen Y are rejecting the the confines of corporate structures and leading the charge by taking a chance on their own passions in new business ventures, while Baby Boomers who are no longer shackled down by kids and mortgages are increasingly choosing to spend their last working years reporting to themselves."