Rise of the Services Sector

[ALB]

This 5-minute video released last week by the Office for National Statistics shows how the distribution of workers over the various sectors of the economy has changed over the past 170 years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DhYh0uV5MzI

Written summary of the report here.

The 2011 census shows that over 80 per cent of workers are now employed in the services sector defined as:

Quote:

A service industry is where services are provided rather than a good being produced. This industry has grown considerably over the last 170 years. In today’s categorisations, the service industries comprise:

• distribution, hotels and restaurants (which includes wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motor cycles, and accommodation and food service activities);  

• transport and communication (which includes transport and storage, and information and communication);

• banking, finance and insurance (which includes financial and insurance activities, real estate activities, professional, scientific and technical activities, and administrative and support service activities); 

• public administration, education and health (which includes public administration and defence; compulsory social security, education, and human health and social work activities); and

• other services (which includes arts, entertainment and recreation, other service activities, activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods – and services – producing activities of households for own use , and activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies).

I don't know whether this fact has any implications for the language we use to put across our case which could be seen as being addressed mainly to those who "produce a good" as in the manufacturing, construction and energy sectors (which together make up less than 20 per cent of workers)?

Maybe not, since most of our members will be working or used to work in the service sector whose official name, oddly, seems to be "service industries", suggesting that service workers are still industrial workers of a sort, so letting us (and even more the IWW) off the hook.

[DJP]

Interesting presentation. Would be interesting to see how much of the decline in manufacturing jobs is due to capital flight and how much is due to "technological unemployment". 

[ALB]

This is what the report says on this without trying to attribute which contributed what to the decline in the share of workers in manufacturing:

Quote:

However, over time, technological advances have allowed process lines to become more mechanised and require fewer workers to operate them. Heavy industries, producing large volumes of low-value goods, such as steelmaking, have become more efficient and so are able to produce the same amount of output from fewer manufacturing sites employing fewer people. These heavy industries have been replaced in part by smaller industrial units producing high-value goods, such as the aerospace and electronics industries.The speed at which globalisation has affected industries has increased over the last half-century. Foreign markets have become more competitive and increased globalisation offered cheaper labour and plant facilities abroad, making imported goods more affordable and adversely affecting the manufacturing industry within England and Wales. This contributed to reducing the manufacturing workforce and improvements in communication and transport links have created an increased interdependence for trading goods and services throughout the world.

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