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 Luxembourg 88.51
2 Singapore 84.41
3 Bahamas 83.31
4 Israel 81.86
5 Netherlands 81.81
6 United Kingdom 80.83
7 Malta 80.07
8 Sweden 79.89
9 Canada 79.24
10 Denmark 79.23
11 Cyprus 79.16
12 United States of America (USA) 78.74
13 Norway 78.54
14 Iceland 78.49
15 Barbados 78.42
16 Australia 78.38
17 Belgium 78.24
18 Argentina 78.1
19 Brunei Darussalam 77.28
20 Switzerland 77.07
21 France 77.04
22 Venezuela 76.81
23 Ireland 76.8
24 Kuwait 76.07
25 Spain 75.54
26 Saint Lucia 75.34
27 New Zealand 74.87
28 Finland 74.58
29 Montenegro 73.44
30 Jordan 73.09
31 Greece 73.06
32 Saudi Arabia 72.79
33 Uruguay 72.76
34 Maldives 72.55
35 South Africa 72.41
36 Dominican Republic 72.4
37 Japan 72.4
38 Germany 71.61
39 Austria 70.99
40 Brazil 70.94
41 Mauritius 70.35
42 Trinidad and Tobago 70.34
43 South Korea 70.28
44 Italy 70.24
45 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 70.04
46 Portugal 69.83
47 Costa Rica 69.22
48 Latvia 68.99
49 Chile 68.78
50 Jamaica 68.6
51 Fiji 68.26
52 Estonia 68.13
53 Panama 67.88
54 Lithuania 67.86
55 Belize 67.61
56 Cabo Verde 67.6
57 Suriname 67.59
58 Russia 67.38
59 Syria 66.69
60 Croatia 66.14
61 Cuba 65.49
62 Lebanon 65.1
63 Eswatini 64.46
64 United Arab Emirates 64.39
65 Haiti 64.31
66 Kazakhstan 64.16
67 Colombia 64.11
68 Oman 63.99
69 Bahrain 63.81
70 Bulgaria 63.36
71 Hungary 63.19
72 Paraguay 63.14
73 Sao Tome and Principe 62.92
74 Malaysia 62.72
75 Botswana 62.49
76 Yemen 62.25
77 Djibouti 62
78 Mexico 61.97
79 Namibia 61.75
80 Slovenia 61.61
81 Ukraine 61.22
82 El Salvador 61.2
83 Slovakia 61.12
84 Czechia 60.09
85 Algeria 59.99
86 Guyana 59.6
87 Gabon 59.3
88 Libya 59.17
89 Iraq 58.8
90 Poland 58.71
91 Belarus 58.56
92 Philippines 58.03
93 Gambia 57.96
94 Peru 57.43
95 Moldova 57.32
96 Serbia 56.96
97 Senegal 56.78
98 Turkey 56.57
99 Kyrgyzstan 55.33
100 North Macedonia 54.95
101 Nicaragua 53.16
102 Mongolia 53.11
103 Ecuador 53.04
104 Nigeria 53.03
105 Tunisia 52.75
106 Egypt 52.44
107 Mauritania 51.56
108 Uzbekistan 51.27
109 Iran 51.24
110 Armenia 51.2
111 Solomon Islands 50.61
112 Bosnia and Herzegovina 50.33
113 Bolivia 50.05
114 Guatemala 49.98
115 Tonga 49.76
116 Azerbaijan 49.22
117 Ghana 49.21
118 Indonesia 49.14
119 Honduras 49.12
120 Romania 48.69
121 Burkina Faso 48.64
122 Togo 48.41
123 Georgia 47.59
124 China 47.25
125 Liberia 47.23
126 Sri Lanka 47.15
127 Ivory Coast 46.99
128 Comoros 46.79
129 Thailand 45.73
130 Qatar 45.14
131 Congo 44.99
132 Samoa 44.91
133 Sudan 44.81
134 Timor-Leste 44.4
135 Morocco 43.66
136 North Korea 43.45
137 Albania 43.43
138 Benin 43.42
139 Angola 42.47
140 Lesotho 42.39
141 Cameroon 42.09
142 Equatorial Guinea 41.14
143 Bangladesh 40.38
144 Zambia 39.83
145 Tajikistan 39.49
146 Turkmenistan 39.49
147 Afghanistan 38.96
148 Sierra Leone 38.76
149 Pakistan 38.13
150 Cambodia 37.56
151 Vietnam 35.34
152 Myanmar 34.21
153 Bhutan 34.06
154 Guinea 33.56
155 India 32.28
156 Guinea-Bissau 30.91
157 Papua New Guinea 30.63
158 Mali 30
159 Eritrea 29.59
160 Vanuatu 29.14
161 Rwanda 29.08
162 Tanzania 28.44
163 Zimbabwe 27.24
164 Madagascar 27.15
165 Democratic Republic of the Congo 25.86
166 Laos 25.62
167 Ethiopia 24.05
168 Central African Republic 23.89
169 South Sudan 23.23
170 Chad 23.06
171 Mozambique 21.19
172 Niger 20.75
173 Nepal 20.52
174 Malawi 18.27
175 Somalia 17.31
176 Burundi 10.45

Bar chart

World employment in services by year

World employment in services by year.

Table

Year Number
1991 34.44
1992 34.8
1993 35.51
1994 36.3
1995 37.31
1996 37.97
1997 38.46
1998 38.79
1999 39.02
2000 39.37
2001 39.8
2002 40.35
2003 40.78
2004 41.48
2005 41.94
2006 42.57
2007 42.95
2008 43.48
2009 44.11
2010 44.47
2011 45.09
2012 45.55
2013 46.39
2014 47.28
2015 48.04
2016 48.67
2017 49.34
2018 49.85
2019 50.58

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.