Tertiary Sector

9 Key excerpts on "Tertiary Sector"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Western Europe

  Geographical Perspectives

  • Hugh Clout, Mark (Reader In Geography, University Of Exeter) Blacksell, Russell (Professor Of Geography, University Of Sussex) King, David (Professor Of Economic Geography, University Of Plymouth) Pinder, Mark Blacksell, Russell King, David Pinder(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  With respect to both employment and financial importance, the production of food and manufactured goods has been overtaken by the generation and delivery of services to support the production of goods and to enhance the quality of life. Three-fifths of the gross value added in the eighteen economies derives from services, which employ a comparable share of the total workforce. Over the last two decades, the absolute number of jobs in both the primary and secondary sectors has contracted sharply in Western Europe as a result of rationalization in farming, forestry, mining and traditional manufacturing and because of the challenging interaction of an array of social, political, financial and organizational processes that are summarized conventionally by the harsh term ‘deindustrialization’ (Goddard and Champion 1983). By contrast, the number of employees in service activities in the eighteen countries rose from 58 630 000 to 88 308 000 between 1971 and 1990, by which time service-sector employment was very much greater than the primary (10 035 000) and secondary (48 180 000) sectors combined. This transition from the production of goods to the delivery of services has implications for every man, woman and child in Western Europe. It permeates all aspects of human well-being, affecting economic dynamism, employment opportunities, educational requirements, class and gender relations, regional disparities and a host of other characteristics relating to the quality of life. Once-vibrant activities have become ‘sunset industries’ and service-related ‘sunrise’ employment has brought new opportunities to some localities but has denied them in others. The economic geography of Western Europe is being painfully refashioned and so too is its social geography, as old skills are no longer valued and new ones are required in an age of computing and information technology (Marstrand 1984). Indeed, the services revolution has infiltrated the total geography of our eighteen states so thoroughly and forcefully that it is simply taken for granted.

  ‘Service employment’ and its synonym the ‘Tertiary Sector’ represent a poorly defined, catch-all category which lumps together most activities that do not directly involve producing farm crops, extracting minerals or manufacturing commodities (Daniels 1991; Illeris 1989). Services therefore range from international banking to tourism, from government and administration to entertainment, and from health care and education to distribution and retailing. Some service jobs are emphatically in the private sector, others depend on the state; some are filled predominantly by men (e.g. transport), others involve mainly female staff (e.g. domestic and hotel services); some are immensely well paid, others place their workers well below the poverty line (Seabrook 1985). City financiers, civil servants, opera singers, bus drivers, kitchen staff, hotel porters, dustmen and lavatory cleaners are all service employees! Thus the services sector stretches from the most comfortable and well-rewarded members of society to the most exploited ‘guestworkers’ suffering the crudest discrimination.

  Table 7.1 Origin of gross domestic product, by sector, 1990

  (%)

  Trying to classify this great variety of activities has become something of a craft industry among social scientists in recent years. A fundamental distinction between ‘market’ (or private) services and ‘non-market’ (state-organized) services is clear enough and effectively separates central and local government and state education and health services from the enormous array of privately funded retailing, leisure and financial operations (Table 7.1

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Human Geography of East Central Europe

  • David Turnock(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 Tertiary Sector geographiesTransport, energy and tourism

  The Tertiary Sector

  This chapter deals with transport and tourism, as well as energy which is often seen as an extension of the secondary sector, while retailing is covered in Chapter 5 as part of the urban scene. But, by way of introduction, it is worth emphasising that probably no transformation has been as dramatic as the growth of the Tertiary Sector, especially if construction is discounted. It has to be said that different procedures for calculating contributions to national output (national income in 1989 and gross value-added for the 1990s) create problems of comparability while the occupation figures have to allow for the substantial contraction in the total employment through the scale of de-industrialisation and the difficulty of showing agriculture realistically when there is so much non-salaried and part-time work (thus the 1989 figure for Romania is probably too low in comparison with 1994 although some increase might be expected). Nevertheless the increases registered by services do point to a significant economic trend which brings ECE much closer to West European profiles. In terms of employment as well as value-added, the service is now the largest of the four shown–with Albania the only exception, although in Romania the employment share is still well below the 50 per cent threshold which virtually all the other countries have crossed (Table 4.1 ). It is worth emphasising that the Tertiary Sector tends to be strongest in large cities where agriculture is virtually non-existent and where certain administrative, commercial, educational and financial services are heavily concentrated. The regional breakdown for Romania (Table 4.2 ), which fits the areas shown in Figure 3.7 ), shows the sector (including construction) accounting for 53 per cent of both GDP and salaried employment nationally, but in Bucharest this proportion rises to 64 per cent for salaries and 71 per cent for GDP. By contrast in the industrially-strong Central region only 46 per cent and 48 per cent respectively are recorded. Figure 4.1

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Advances in Commercial Geography

  Prospects, Methods and Applications

  • Carlos Garrocho(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • El Colegio Mexiquense

    (Publisher)

  The traditional idea that the clusters are necessarily composed of firms that maintain customer-supplier relationships is no longer in force, and even less for the Tertiary Sector (Maskell and Lorenz, 2004; Simmie,1998; Suarez-Villa and Walrod, 1997). Currently other factors are mainly considered. These factors include proximity to labor markets, access to customers and suppliers, reducing search costs of consumers, monitoring by competitors, transmission of tacit and non-standardized information, availability of infrastructure, and land use planning, among many more. Thus, commercial geography uses the cluster term to refer to tertiary agglomerated firms (i.e., co-located) in the territory (Shearmur, 2007). 4 In the end, this book offers some elements that help to better explain the spatial organization of tertiary activities within the city. On the one hand, it provides an abstract vocabulary that allows a more transparent representation of the spatial organization of tertiary firms in the intra-urban space, assuming that no perfect vocabulary exist for the re-description of reality, that the integration is an ongoing task and unfinished by nature, and that the abstract vocabulary will never achieve a perfect representation of the real (Barnes, 2001). On the other hand, the book offers a variety of methodological resources (even some of the last generation; see especially chapter 4) that allow to put into practice the abstract conceptual vocabulary on the spatial organization of tertiary activities within urban spaces. Exposure Strategy The book is divided into two parts and follows a deductive exposition strategy, which goes from the general to the particular. The first part (“Radar views”) includes broad spectrum contributions to commercial geography. The first chapter, by Brian Berry, focuses on analyzing the historical trajectory of commercial geography and explores its possible conceptual and methodological developments in the coming years

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Children and Primary Geography

  • Patrick Wiegand(Author)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  The animals needed special food which was expensive and they had to repay a loan from the school fund. Raising money therefore became a real and urgent task for the children and they were later able to extend their own experience by considering the economics of a 'real' farm. Understanding industrial and agricultural systems Recognizing 'that adults do different kinds of work' (AT4, level Ic) is the first step on the road to understanding 'economic activities'. The National Curriculum for geography divides these into primary, secondary and tertiary activities. Primary industry is the process whereby natural resources are obtained from the Earth. It includes fishing, agriculture, forestry, mining and quarrying. The products are collected but not processed. Secondary industry is manufacturing industry. The raw materials are changed into goods which are used either for direct sale to consumers or to other factories so that they may use the products in their own manufacturing process. Tertiary industry is the provision of services. It includes transport, whole-saling and retailing. Tertiary industry links primary and secondary industries with each other and with their customers. Many geographers also acknow-ledge a further sector: that of quaternary industry. This consists of higher-order services including education, consultancy, administration and financial services. Quite young children appear to be able to discriminate between these different types of economic activity. 10 For example, given pictures of a doctor, postal worker, police officer and football player, many children are able to place the first three together in one group and justify that grouping on the basis that these were 'people that helped you'.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Human Geography

  People, Place, and Culture

  • Erin H. Fouberg, Alexander B. Murphy(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  New Patterns of Economic Activity Most service industries are not tied to raw materials and do not need large amounts of energy. Market accessibility is more relevant, but advances in telecommunications have rendered even that factor less important for some types of service industries. To understand the influences that shape the location of services, it is useful to review the distinction among tertiary, quaternary, and quinary industries. Tertiary services related to transportation and communication are closely tied to pop- ulation patterns and to the location of primary and second- ary industries. Other tertiary services, such as food service and retail, are influenced mainly by market considerations. If they are located far from their consumers, they are unlikely to succeed. with lower wages. This region of the United States, which used to be called the Manufacturing Belt, came to be called the Rust Belt, evoking the image of long-abandoned, rusted-out steel factories (Fig. 12.23). Then the global economic downturn that began in 2008 resulted in job losses in communities dependent on both secondary and tertiary industries. These examples remind us that not all deindustrialized regions find their niche easily in the new service economy. It also posits that a tertiary economy, once established, does not necessarily buffer places from recessionary trends. Nonetheless, some parts of the Rust Belt have revived significantly in recent years. Moreover, a number of secondary industrial regions have transitioned to a viable service econ- omy fairly successfully. The Sun Belt is found in the southern part of the United States, stretching through the Southeast to the Southwest (Fig. 12.23). Both the population and econ- omy of this region have grown over the last few decades. Service-sector businesses have chosen to locate in places such as Atlanta and Dallas, where the climate is warm and local laws favor business interests.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Reflective Practice in Geography Teaching

  • Ashley Kent(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Already the South East of England is a service-dominated, export-orientated region, increasingly economically divorced from other parts of the UK. This is reflected in cycles of property costs, inflationary pressures and patterns of consumer spending (Allen, 1992). These developments provide a more powerful basis for future regional inequality in the UK New approaches to the geography of services 93 than any extractive or manufacturing developments. Although services have been dominated by urban locations in the past, there is also evidence of decentralisation, especially of relatively routine functions, driven by high operating costs in the cities and supported by ease of telecommunications. In Britain, the beneficiaries will nevertheless probably remain largely in the south outside London. CONCLUSIONS: SERVICES AND THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY The simple certainties of sector theory – the clear distinction between extractive, manufacturing and service divisions in the economy – may have been convenient in the past, but simply do not reflect modern economic realities. Perhaps even more significantly, they are largely irrelevant to the common experience of modern work. Most employment today, including that offered by manufacturing firms, primarily requires service skills, whether intellectual, interpersonal or manual, often in combination. The teaching of geography needs therefore to explore the range of such skills required and available in different places, and their essential interdependence across regions and nations. To illustrate from three well-known cases. First, successful car production, for example, requires a complex assembly system of technically sophisticated components on a continental or even global scale. Its planning, design, implementation and delivery to wide markets depends on the coordination of a vast array of service skills.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Environment and Business

  • Alasdair Blair, David Hitchcock(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  8: Tertiary industries: the hidden environmental issues

  • The importance of the Tertiary Sector

  • Environmental impacts of the service sector

  • Retailing and the environment—why retailing matters

  • Characteristics of modern retailing

  • Retailing impact on the environment

  • Case study: Sainsbury’s environmental impact

  • Environmental concern by retailers

  • Environmental pressures on retailing

  • Environmental opportunities for retailing

  Supermarkets are popular because they are both cheap and convenient, at least for those with a car. We vote for them with our feet and wheels. But we don’t always like what happens as a result. (Elkington and Hailes, 1998)

  Despite the growing dominance of the tertiary industries in all parts of the world, and especially in the developed world, relatively little attention has been given to either their impact on the environment or how they utilize the environment in their business activities. This may be because:

  • in comparison to agriculture or manufacturing they appear to depend far less on physical resources for their basic operation;
  • their impact on the environment is less obvious because they often deal with a more intangible product. But the fact that this is less obvious does not mean that it does not exist. Compared to an oil refinery, a supermarket seems to be much less of a polluter but it is not without impact. The impacts are there but they are more subtle.
  • the environmental pressures and opportunities for service businesses may also seem less obvious or pressing than those for the other sectors, but again they do exist and they do matter overall because of the size of the Tertiary Sector.

  The aim of this chapter is to show the service businesses are significant in environmental terms.

  The importance of the Tertiary Sector

  It is likely that the majority of readers of this book will be, or have been, employed in the Tertiary Sector of the economy. Since at least 1980 the majority of employment in developed countries has been in the tertiary or service sector (Price and Blair, 1989). The service sector is increasingly dominant in the world economy. Of the world’s total GDP of $27,680 billion in 1995, 63 per cent came from services. The largest six economies with a GDP of over $1000 billion (the USA, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, and Italy in that order) had an average of 66 per cent derived from services, with the leading nation, the USA, obtaining 72 per cent (World Resources Institute, 1998, pp. 236–7). Since these countries between them account for 65 per cent of world GDP, it is clear that services are of paramount economic significance. Even the low-income developing countries have 35 per cent of GDP attributable to services while the middle-income countries have 52 per cent (ibid.). Not only is there a close connection between levels of wealth and services at a national level, but, in general, individual service employees are higher paid than those in other sectors.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  No longer available |Learn more

  Fair Economics

  Nature, money and people beyond neoclassical thinking

  • Irene Schoene(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Green Books

    (Publisher)

  It is especially depressing to listen to politicians these days claiming that we need more industrialization, more jobs in industry, the secondary sector. This only shows how badly informed most politicians are as they do not seem to be aware of the importance of the relative shift of the three economic sectors. Therefore, what is definitely needed is a change in the structure of statistical data. They should be qualified according to the different patterns typical for the three sectors, and ‘labour’ should no longer be included in sectors where it does not belong when summing up market’ turnover figures.

  How this correlates with banking as part of the Tertiary Sector will now be discussed.

  Let us remind ourselves that the secondary sector of the economy follows as well as represents the classical and neoclassical assumptions about nature and humans which are seen as if they are factors of production. Until such out of date assumptions are consigned to the scrapheap of history no society of the 21st century can claim to be modern. Today, we live in societies which are only semi-modern.

  The change to the pattern of reciprocal interaction, however, is possible. Such a society would be based on a modern understanding of nature and people with money as MEANS, and decoupled from direct reciprocal interaction. This means simply that the typical tertiary pattern for services that we have identified needs to become the basis for a transformation of all aspects of life, similar to the way the typical pattern of the secondary sector has affected our lives and still is doing today.

  Such a conscious and well-founded decision about making the tertiary pattern the basis of our activities has not yet been tried. Perhaps, now in the 21st century we can try it. I think it’s high time to do so, for the sake of nature around us and for us as natural human beings.

  9.5.3. Banking – a typical service

  Banking is a service, a process between a banking company and a customer who initiates it. All details about the typical pattern for services also apply to banking.

  2007 saw the beginning of what we call now the ‘banking crisis’. This crisis first became apparent for everyone when in the United States of America in September 2008 the investment bank Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in USA, shut down because of bankruptcy. It turned out that it was not the only one.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Forestry in the Midst of Global Changes

  • Christine Farcy, Eduardo Rojas-Briales, Inazio Martinez de Arano(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  III Tertiarization of the Economy

  Passage contains an image

  11 Main Findings and Trends of Tertiarization

  Maria J. Murcia , Meike Siegner , and Jennifer DeBoer

  11.1 Introduction

  11.2 Critiques of the Early Three- Sector Theory (TST) Program

  11.3 Tertiarization Around the Globe

  11.4 Tertiarization in Times of the “Third Industrial Revolution”

  11.5 Conclusion

  References Endnote

  11.1 Introduction

  The academic discussion on tertiarization can be traced back to Allan G. B. Fisher’s (1939) seminal article on tertiary production in the late 1930s. Indeed, Fisher is considered one of the founding fathers, together with Colin Clark and Jean Fourastié, of what we now know of as three-sector theory (TST). TST depicts an evolutionary development where the focus of economic activity shifts from the primary sector, through the secondary sector, and finally to the Tertiary Sector (Fourastié 1949). When a country is dependent on the primary sector, the largest proportion of national income is achieved through the “cultivation or acquisition of food products and in obtaining other raw materials from natural sources” (Fisher 1939), such as forestry, agriculture, or mining, which often coincides with low per capita income and, hence, an early stage of development. When a country’s secondary sector expands, the economic development includes “treatment of raw materials, all manufactures, building and construction of all kinds, and gas, water, and electricity supply” (Fisher 1939); a situation that typically corresponds to an intermediate level of national income. Finally, in highly developed countries, services comprise the dominant share of the economy’s total output and a higher level of per capita income is achieved. A main tenet of TST is that services’ growth would be driven by domestic demand. While services could not by themselves drive higher income levels; instead, they would follow growth (Ghani 2010).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book