On the Limits of the Post-Industrial Society Structural Change and Service Sector Employment in Spain

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the growth and the structure of employment in the service sector in the Spanish Economy from 1958 to 1989 and to draw comparisons with the trends exhibited by other European countries. In contrast to the explanation offered by the theory of stages, which assumes that growth in services is associated with the pattern of final demand, this research argues that, since the middle of the 1970s, the growth of market service employment is due to an increase in intermediate demand of services. In order to demonstrate this, an intersectoral analysis is applied to input output data which was homogenised for this research. This methodological approach enables employment in the service sector to be connected to the other sectors. Rejecting the idea that services are replacing manufacturing as the new engine of growth, the results show an increased dependence on market services by industrial production. The final part of the paper presents explanations for this trend.

Keywords: Economic growth, Input Output, Services, Employment, Structural Change, European Economy

JEL Classification: C67, C68, D57, E12, E24, L80, L90