BRITAIN’S bogus jobs recovery was exposed yesterday by official stats charting the huge growth in “enforced” self-employment and a massive fall in wages for those registered.

Tory boasts on rising employment were fatally punctured by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) study showing that nearly two in three “jobs” created since the first three months of 2008 were actually people signing up as their own boss.

Around 732,000 people became self-employed over the period compared to 339,000 “employed.”

Over 4.5 million workers now fall into the category — a massive 20 per cent rise and the biggest in the European Union outside Slovenia and Estonia.

And average wages for those registered plummeted to a paltry £207 a week in 2012-13, a third down on an inflation-adjusted £301 six years earlier.

The top two self-employed professions were the cab trade and building work.

The statistics smashed the Conservatives’ favoured picture of an economy returning to health under their stewardship with thrusting young business leaders heading the charge.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Today’s figures nail the myth perpetuated by ministers that the UK’s new self-employed workers are all young entrepreneurs.

“In fact, almost half are over the age of 50.”

She added that self-employment appeared “a key factor in the UK economy’s shift towards low-paid work.”

ONS number-crunchers would only guess at the reasons for mushrooming self-employment, which they said was linked to a drop in the number of people deregistering in the past five years.

They speculated causes of the rise “may include” more pensioners toiling beyond the retirement age and a shortage of secure work.

But experts were adamant that the figures reflected tens of thousands being “forced” to become self-employed because they couldn’t find a decent full-time job — or any job at all.

Economist Michael Burke warned: “It is not a model for sustainable growth and is part of a wider trend towards casualisation, part-time, low-paid and zero-hours contracts.

“Decent well-paid jobs are created when business and government invest.

“The entire crisis is caused by the investment strike of big firms, which this government has compounded by its own cuts in investment.”