Tertiarization of employment in the global economy: theoretical and empirical analysis

 The article presents the results of a study on a characteristic aspect of modern intersectoral structural development, namely the increase in the share of the service sector in overall employment. At the theoretical stage of the research, based on scientific publications by foreign authors of the 2000s, a critical analysis was carried out of the arguments for and against the notion of the historical inevitability of employment tertiarization at the level of global and national economies. Contradictions in the arguments of both sides of the scientific debate that unfolded on this issue were identified, followed by the formulation of the author's position on the need to pay greater attention to aspects of the international division of labor, the transformation of consumer priorities in the context of an emerging post-industrial society, and the assessment of the quality of observed structural shifts. At the empirical stage, the dynamics of the distribution of employment and created gross added value between the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors were analyzed. The share of employment in the global services sector, unlike its share in global gross added value, exceeded 50% in 2024, i.e., with a lag of half a century. Such a discrepancy between the main indicators of the tertiaryization process of the world economy indicates greater stability in goods-producing sectors in terms of employment than in creating new value. Statistically, this is confirmed by the turnaround of the share of industrial employment in 2015 from decline to growth and by exceeding in 2025 the level of the early 1990s.

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