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|Primary sector: raw materials
Secondary sector: manufacturing
Tertiary sector: services
|Quaternary sector: innovation services
Quinary sector: human services
|AGB Fisher · Colin Clark · Jean Fourastié|
|Sectors by ownership|
|Business sector · Private sector · Public sector · Voluntary sector|
The classical breakdown of all economic sectors follows:
- Primary: Involves the retrieval and production of raw materials, such as corn, coal, wood and iron. (A coal miner and a fisherman would be workers in the primary sector.)
- Secondary: Involves the transformation of raw or intermediate materials into goods e.g. manufacturing steel into cars, or textiles into clothing. (A builder and a dressmaker would be workers in the secondary sector.)
- Tertiary: Involves the supplying of services to consumers and businesses, such as baby-sitting, cinema and banking. (A shopkeeper and an accountant would be workers in the tertiary sector.)
An economy may include several sectors (also called industries), that evolved in successive phases.
- The industrial revolution lessened the role of subsistence farming, converting it to more extensive and monocultural forms of agriculture in the last three centuries. Economic growth took place mostly in mining, construction and manufacturing industries.
- In the economies of modern consumer societies, services, finance, and technology – the knowledge economy – play an increasingly significant role.
An economy can also be divided along different lines:
- Industry classification
- Division of labour
- Economic development
- Zoltan Kenessey. "The Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary Sectors of the Economy" (PDF). The Review of Income and Wealth. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
- Matt Rosenberg (14 January 2007). "Sectors of the Economy". About.com. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
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