Dienstleistungen#

Services. Economic activity which does not result in the production of goods. Service industries include the economic branches of trade and storage, hotel and catering, transport and communications, banking and finance, insurance and business services as well as personal, social and public services. According to the legal status of the service provider, there are public and private services; according to the target group, services may be either personal or production-oriented or those benefiting the industry as a whole or the individual enterprise.

In the context of modernisation theories, the service sector has acquired an important indicator function. A high proportion of services of the total net product or total employment is characteristic of developed post-industrial societies. Whereas in Austria in 1951, 32.6% were still employed in the primary sector (agriculture), 37.8% in the secondary sector (industry and production) and only 29.6% in the tertiary sector (services), this had changed drastically by 1997: 63.2% in the service sector, 31.1% in the secondary sector and 6.7% in the primary sector. In the last 50 years drastic changes have taken place; due to a balanced economic and social policy there have been no serious social tensions.

Literature#