A "low" amount of Europeans would rather be self-employed rather than work for someone else, new figures show.

The study, undertaken as part of a European Commission project, found that while 45 per cent of people in the Euro region would be their own boss if they could, this compares to 55 per cent in the US and 71 per cent in China.

Japan was discovered to be the area with the weakest desire for entrepreneurship, with only 39 per cent of employees saying they would prefer to manage themselves.

European Commission vice-president Antonio Tajani, who is the industry and entrepreneurship commissioner, said the aim of the survey was to find out what factors encourage people to branch out on their own, creating more jobs in the process.

"We could have millions of new innovative and creative enterprises which would rejuvenate Europe's economic basis, make it more robust, more job-generating and more resilient to stormy economic times," he explained.

Related employment news on the continent last week saw France announce that its number of jobless residents had remained steady throughout the first quarter of 2010.

The average rate in the country and its overseas territories was 9.9 per cent, said Paris-based statistics agency INSEE.

Posted by Lee Thrace