Employment in services (% of total employment)

Table of Contents

Employment in services by country

Lack of map.
A map of the world, with colours to highlight the employment in services as percent of total employment of each country. Numbers on the legend are %.

List of all countries

Flag Position Country Number
1 Djibouti 92.86
2 Luxembourg 89.53
3 Singapore 85.52
4 Bahamas 84.94
5 Netherlands 84.01
6 Israel 83.64
7 Cyprus 81.37
8 Malta 81.29
9 United Kingdom 81.25
10 Sweden 80.94
11 Saudi Arabia 80.82
12 Barbados 80.81
13 Canada 79.51
14 Belgium 79.49
15 United States of America (USA) 79.09
16 Australia 78.74
17 Denmark 78.71
18 Norway 78.55
19 Jordan 78.44
20 France 78.25
21 Switzerland 78.22
22 Iceland 77.98
23 Montenegro 77.85
24 Ireland 77.61
25 Brunei Darussalam 77.09
26 Spain 76.49
27 Argentina 76.41
28 Lebanon 76.23
29 Finland 74.81
30 New Zealand 73.86
31 Dominican Republic 73.44
32 Japan 73.29
33 Kuwait 73.12
34 Saint Lucia 72.59
35 Greece 72.57
36 Germany 72.3
37 Uruguay 72.29
38 Portugal 72.09
39 Chile 71.69
40 Mauritius 71.69
41 Brazil 71.63
42 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 71.49
43 Austria 71.16
44 Venezuela 70.91
45 South Korea 70.68
46 Latvia 70.33
47 Trinidad and Tobago 70.14
48 Estonia 70.02
49 Italy 69.77
50 Lithuania 69.11
51 United Arab Emirates 69.01
52 Cabo Verde 68.4
53 Libya 68.12
54 Russia 67.93
55 Croatia 67.85
56 Jamaica 67.83
57 Panama 67.83
58 Eswatini 67.75
59 Maldives 67.3
60 Cuba 66.9
61 Belize 66.54
62 Costa Rica 66.38
63 Suriname 66.32
64 Kazakhstan 66.28
65 Botswana 66.21
66 Sao Tome and Principe 66.16
67 Colombia 65.58
68 Paraguay 64.82
69 Bulgaria 64.74
70 Bahrain 64.46
71 Hungary 64.42
72 Iraq 64.18
73 Slovenia 63.8
74 South Africa 63.51
75 Syria 63.13
76 Mexico 63
77 Guyana 62.9
78 Poland 62.75
79 Slovakia 62.71
80 Malaysia 62.41
81 Namibia 62.23
82 El Salvador 61.86
83 Czechia 61.57
84 North Macedonia 60.54
85 Yemen 60.22
86 Algeria 59.87
87 Peru 59.68
88 Philippines 59.16
89 Qatar 58.92
90 Belarus 58.91
91 Uzbekistan 58.2
92 Turkey 57.76
93 Fiji 57.61
94 Somalia 56.15
95 Senegal 56.08
96 Honduras 56.05
97 Samoa 56.01
98 Bolivia 55.11
99 Gabon 55.11
100 Nicaragua 54.19
101 Tunisia 53.84
102 Oman 53.71
103 Papua New Guinea 53.39
104 Liberia 52.93
105 Egypt 52.7
106 Mauritania 52.63
107 Serbia 52.62
108 Ecuador 52.54
109 Gambia 52.34
110 Timor-Leste 52.08
111 Bosnia and Herzegovina 51.8
112 Solomon Islands 51.79
113 Kyrgyzstan 51.48
114 Guatemala 51.43
115 Comoros 50.72
116 Iran 50.68
117 Mongolia 50.5
118 Benin 49.96
119 Azerbaijan 49.71
120 Togo 49.62
121 Indonesia 49.15
122 Romania 48.94
123 Nigeria 47.81
124 Thailand 47.76
125 Sri Lanka 47.34
126 Ghana 46.92
127 Congo 46.67
128 Georgia 46.52
129 Tonga 46.31
130 Morocco 46.28
131 Burkina Faso 45.98
132 China 45.83
133 Sierra Leone 45.34
134 Ivory Coast 44.38
135 Vanuatu 44.19
136 Turkmenistan 44.06
137 Albania 43.92
138 Bangladesh 43.85
139 Haiti 42.86
140 Cameroon 41.7
141 Bhutan 40.93
142 Guinea-Bissau 39.72
143 North Korea 38.84
144 Pakistan 38.31
145 Angola 38.2
146 Tajikistan 37.15
147 Cambodia 37.08
148 Afghanistan 36.15
149 Myanmar 36.07
150 Lesotho 35.95
151 Vietnam 35.79
152 Moldova 35.54
153 Democratic Republic of the Congo 35.17
154 Zimbabwe 35.12
155 Guinea 34.8
156 Zambia 34.69
157 Armenia 33.57
158 India 31.46
159 Equatorial Guinea 31.39
160 Ethiopia 31.16
161 Rwanda 30.74
162 Malawi 30.3
163 Eritrea 30.08
164 South Sudan 27.02
165 Tanzania 26.2
166 Central African Republic 23.05
167 Laos 23.03
168 Niger 22.22
169 Mali 21.97
170 Mozambique 21.46
171 Chad 21.36
172 Nepal 21.24
173 Madagascar 20.5
174 Burundi 11.88

Bar chart

World employment in services by year

World employment in services by year.

Table

Year Number
1991 35.24
1992 35.64
1993 36.38
1994 37.04
1995 37.81
1996 38.4
1997 38.78
1998 39.1
1999 39.31
2000 39.57
2001 40.1
2002 40.66
2003 41.1
2004 41.85
2005 42.32
2006 42.92
2007 43.29
2008 43.82
2009 44.4
2010 44.76
2011 45.3
2012 45.72
2013 46.61
2014 47.48
2015 48.32
2016 48.81
2017 49.24
2018 49.76
2019 50.25
2020 49.7
2021 49.7
2022 49.99
2023 50.22

Countries with the highest employment in services

Top 10 countries by employment in services

Employment in services (percent of total employment)

The most developed countries stopped dealing with manual work to such extent, its large margin is oriented into the services sector. It means that blue collar workers are in the minority in such places.

Obviously, it is an indication of a highly developed country with large GDP per capita (even including PPP). However, such a situation is available only in the case of places that are largely based on goods and services trading.

The top 5 nations focused on the services the most

According to the data collected in 2020, the three most services-focused countries are incredibly small, yet very rich places such as Macao SAR in China, Hong Kong SAR (also in China), and Luxembourg. As we all know, these three are also in the top of GDP per capita due to large GDP indications and fairly limited number of citizens. Still, it is surprising that 90% of total employment in Macao SAR (China) concerns services.  The second place goes for Hong Kong with 88% and Luxembourg is third with 87%.

What about the largest nations in the world?

If we use the same piece of information from 2020, we can notice that out of three biggest economies in the world, only the USA is heavily focusing on services. 79% of the US citizens are employed as the blue collar workers. China, which has the largest GDP index in the world (PPP), has 47% of the population employed in this sector. As we can guess, it is a large difference when we compare Chinese and American economies. India, on the other hand, employs only 32% of its total labor force in the sector, which is incredibly low for such a high GDP value.