Employment sectors and change: primary to quaternary

5.2 Employment sectors and change

• Primary sector- producing food crops and raw materials (e.g farming, mining and forestry)
• Secondary sector- manufacturing finished products
• Tertiary sector- providing services, either in the private sector (e.g retail, tourism) or public and voluntary sectors (e.g health care, education)
• Quaternary sector- providing specialist services in finance and law, or industries such as IT and biotechnology
• These terms do not fully describe a person's job, position or their hours, there are classifications depending on whether jobs are:
• Full time (35 hours per week) or part-time (under 35 hours)
• temporary or permanent
• employed or self-employed

Understanding economic change

• The drift to London is typical for many graduates in the twenty-first century. It's arisen because of two long-term economic changes in the UK:
• the decline of the primary and secondary sectors
• the growth of the tertiary and quaternary sectors

Primary and secondary sectors decline...

• In the 1980s, the Conservative government planned changes to the UK economy- often called the old economy.
• Goods produced by primary and secondary industries in the UK were often more expensive than the equivalent foods produced overseas. Reasons for this included that:
• British coal was located deeper underground and was more expensive to mine than in many other countries
• UK wages were often higher than those overseas- making British products more expensive. The growth of manufacturing in Asia, with its cheaper labour costs, led to cheap improved goods.
• Large numbers of UK mines and manufacturing plants closed during the 1980s, creating derelict land. Employers like these had provided mainly full-time, well-paid jobs. The closures particularly affected northern England, the Midlands, Wales and Scotland, where unemployment soared.

Tertiary and quaternary sectors grow...

• To replace the lost jobs in the primary and secondary sectors, the government encouraged the growth of a new post-industrial economy/ new economy. The growth took place in the:
• tertiary sector, particularly in tourism and retail. These areas grew because of higher incomes, cheaper air travel and increased car ownership. Some parts of the UK also sought to rebrand their past to create a new image. But unlike the former industrial jobs, many of these new jobs are seasonal (tourism in summer and retail at Christmas) and are often low paid and part-time jobs.
• quaternary sector, which has shown the fastest growth. This is usually called the knowledge economy and it provides highly specialised jobs that use expertise in fields such as finance law and IT. The biggest of these fields is banking and finance; international banks in London generate huge wealth.
• Quaternary industries are footloose as they can locate anywhere. There locations are often chosen according to finical incentives (e.g low tax rates and connectivity (good transport links and superfast broadband are vital). Growth in this sector has concentrated in London's Docklands. Quaternary salaries are much higher than the average, so divisions in wealth between the north and south of the UK have widened.

Employment, incomes and inequality

• Employment, incomes and inequality
• Employment, incomes and inequality

Folie 6

• variations in quality of life