|
Japan The Evolving Occupational Structure
As late as 1955, some 40 percent of the labor force
still
worked in agriculture, but this figure had declined to 17
percent
by 1970 and to 7.2 percent by 1990. The government
estimated in the
late 1980s that this figure would decline to 4.9 percent
by 2000,
as Japan imported more and more of its food and small
family farms
disappeared.
Japan's economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s was
based on the
rapid expansion of heavy manufacturing in such areas as
automobiles, steel, shipbuilding, chemicals, and
electronics. The
secondary sector (manufacturing, construction, and mining)
expanded
to 35.6 percent of the work force by 1970. By the late
1970s,
however, the Japanese economy began to move away from
heavy
manufacturing toward a more service-oriented (tertiary
sector)
base. During the 1980s, jobs in wholesaling, retailing,
finance and
insurance, real estate, transportation, communications,
and
government grew rapidly, while secondary-sector employment
remained
stable. The tertiary sector grew from 47 percent of the
work force
in 1970 to 59.2 percent in 1990 and was expected to grow
to 62
percent by 2000, when the secondary sector will probably
employ
about one-third of Japan's workers.
Data as of January 1994
|
