Employment by Sector in the European Union, the United States, Mexico and Canada, 1985-2005

Abstract

We present a comparison of the rates of employment by sector in 15 European countries, and 3 Northern American countries. We find that EU15 average rate of employment in Services and total is below the United States and Canada, and relate this fact with the level of industrial development and other factors. The main conclusion is that although industrial development is the main cause of relatively low levels of real value-added and employment rates in countries such as Spain, Mexico, Greece and Portugal, there are other EU countries with higher level of industrial development, which show a rate of employment in services below their capacity, such as in the cases of France and Germany, which may be due to rigidities in taxes and rules. The most outstanding EU countries reaching both a high rate of employment and average wage above EU mean are the United Kingdom and 7 smaller countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Sweden