EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES

1. U.13 EMPLOYMENT
STRUCTURES

2. 1. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
• People need food, clothes, a place to live,
medical attention and so on. Economic
activities are all the processes used to
obtain the goods and services that people
need.
• Besides, economic activities provide jobs
to the society. Thus, people have a salary
to satisfy their needs

3. 2. ECONOMIC SECTORS
Economic activities can be divided into three
large sectors: primary, secondary and
tertiary. Sometimes, we also can add a
fourth sector which is called the
quaternary sector.

4. PRIMARY SECTOR OR PRIMARY ACTIVITIES
The primary sector consists of activities which
obtain food and raw material from the land or
the sea
Examples: Farmers, miners, quarrymen, oilrig workers, fishermen...

5. SECONDARY SECTOR OR SECONDARY ACTIVITIES
The secondary sector consists of economic
activities which transform raw materials into
finalished products.
That means that secondary activities make or
manufacturate things
Examples of secondary activities: Steelmaking, car assembly,
construction of buildings and roads, factories, food industry...

6. TERTIARY SECTOR OR TERTIARY ACTIVITIES
It is also called the service sector.
It consists of economic activities which provide
a service to the society, but do not produce
manufacturated goods
Examples of tertiary activities: Teachers, politicians, football players,
doctors, police officers, shop assistants, businessmen...

7. QUATERNARY SECTOR OR QUATERNARY ACTIVITIES
These activities are a type of high-tech service
industry that carries out research and provides
information and advice
Examples of quaternary activities: Scientists, engineers and researchers

8. 3. EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES
• They are diagrams that show us the
percentage of each sector in a society. We
usually only show the primary, the secondary
and the tertiary sector
• The percentage of each sector changes from
one country to another country depending on
its level of development

9. • Developed countries have more people
who work in the tertiary sector
• Developing countries have more people
who work in the primary sector

10. In order to know the proportion of people
working in each sector, we use
employment structures.
They are circular diagrams that show the
percentage of each economic sector
These diagrams usually show the three first
sectors
Even though, the employment structure of a
country can change through the years
depending on its level of development

11. 4. CHANGE OVER THE TIME IN THE
BRITISH EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURE
• Up to about 1800: Most of the people lived
in the countryside so the primary activities
had a 75% of the British employment
structure. Besides, industrialisation was
not developed at all so the percentage of
the secondary activities was very low.
Secondary activities reached a 15% and
tertiary activities a 10%

12. • Since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution, many peasants moved to the
cities to work in factories. As a result, the
percentage of the secondary activities
increased up to 55%. Using new machines
in farming, peasants were not too
required. Thus, the primary sector
decreased and showed a 15%. Besides,
there were more public services so the
tertiary sector reached a 30%

13. • During the 20th
century, people could afford to
buy more services and manufacturated
products, so the tertiary sector increased up
to 70%
• What is more, from the sixties many factories
were located in developing countries and the
secondary sector decreased until a 28%
• The new technologies in the countryside
have reduced the percentage of people who
work in farms. As a result, the primary sector
has a 2% in the British employment structure
nowadays

14. 5. CHANGES BETWEEN THE
EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES OF THE UK
• Even if there is an employment structure
of the whole UK, we can notice some
differences between the regions and
countries of the United Kingdom
• The South-East (London) is the place in
the UK where the tertiary sector is bigger
• The South-East has got the largest
workforce of the country with 8 million of
workers

15. • The North-West (Liverpool and Manchester)
has the smallest percentage in the primary
sector
• On the contrary, Yorkshire (Leeds), East
Midlands (Nottingham), the North (Newcastle)
and Wales (Cardiff) have the biggest
percentage in the primary sector in the UK.
However, all these places have also a bigger
percentage in the tertiary sector like the rest
of the UK
• The places with the smallest workforce in the
UK are Northern Ireland (Belfast), East Anglia
(Norwich) and Wales (Cardiff). They do not
reach the million of workers
• Even though, most regions in the UK have a
similar employment structure

16. 6. VARIATIONS OF THE
EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES IN
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
Different countries have different employment
structures. The employment structure of a given
country can tell you quite a lot about its economy.
In the richest countries, for example, there will usually
be more people working in the tertiary/quaternary sector
than in the primary and secondary sectors. In the
poorest countries, there tend to be more people working
in the primary sector than in either the secondary or
tertiary sectors.

17. In the richest country (USA), most people work in the tertiary sector.
In the poorest country (Nepal), most people work in the primary
sector.
In Brazil, the labour force is more evenly distributed between the three
sectors. Brazil is a country which is trying to reach a high
development in the last decades, but it is still a developing country.
Note that the quaternary sector has been included in the tertiary
sector.