🔍 Read the full analysis: How Field, Factory, And Office Work Define Three Job Sectors on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
A Nov. 2, 2026, episode of ThorstenMeyerAI.com’s Work After Work series explains how economists divide jobs into primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Its historical figures trace the movement of workers from farming toward factories and services, while noting that sector categories vary and that claims about automation remain a thesis, not a finding.
ThorstenMeyerAI.com published the first episode of its planned 60-part Work After Work series on Nov. 2, using the familiar division of work into primary, secondary and tertiary sectors to explain how employment has shifted from farms toward manufacturing and services. The episode presents historical employment estimates and identifies a possible future automation sector as the author’s thesis, not an established economic category or confirmed forecast.
The episode defines the primary sector as work that takes resources from nature, including farming, fishing and forestry, with mining included in many but not all classifications. The secondary sector makes or builds things, covering manufacturing, construction and energy. The tertiary sector provides services, from trade and transport to health care, education and government. A loaf of bread serves as the example: growing wheat is primary work, milling and baking are secondary, and transport and retail are services.
The source’s figures describe a long decline in farming’s share of US employment. Estimates by economic historian Stanley Lebergott put the share of the labor force working in farming at 73.7% in 1800, 54.8% in 1850, 40.2% in 1900 and 12.0% in 1950. The episode cites an International Labour Organization modelled estimate of 1.5% for 2025. These numbers refer to employment shares, not the amount of food produced.
The account also points to changes elsewhere: it says China’s primary-sector employment share fell from 83.5% in 1952 to 22.2% in 2024, while Japan’s census figures show a fall from 53.8% in 1920 to 3.2% in 2020. The series cites ILO modelled estimates for its claim that services have employed more people worldwide than farming since 2001. The episode does not provide the underlying tables in the supplied material, so readers should treat the reported figures as attributed estimates and note their differing sources and time periods.
Why Sector Shifts Matter
The sector map helps explain how economic change can alter the kind of work people do without implying that the underlying needs have vanished. Fewer workers are employed in farming than in the historical estimates, while employment has expanded across manufacturing and a broad range of services. That distinction matters in debates about productivity, job displacement and economic change: a falling employment share in one sector does not, by itself, show that its output has fallen.
The episode also challenges the claim that the United States no longer makes goods. It says US factory employment is about 35% below its June 1979 peak, while real manufacturing output in 2025 was about 1.9 times its 1979 level. Those measures describe different things: employment counts workers, while output measures production adjusted for inflation. The figures therefore do not support treating fewer factory jobs as proof that manufacturing has disappeared.
For readers following automation, the historical framework offers a way to ask where displaced work might go. But past shifts do not establish what future technology will do. The author’s suggestion that automation could become a separate sector performing up to 90% of work within a decade or a few decades is explicitly presented as a personal thesis. It is not a measured outcome or a settled forecast.
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How Economists Built the Three-Sector Map
The three-sector framework developed in the early 20th century. The episode credits New Zealand economist Allan G. B. Fisher with adding the term “tertiary” in a book written in 1934 and published in 1935. Fisher later described a shift from primary work into secondary activities and, to a greater extent, tertiary production. The labels primary and secondary were already used in statistical discussion in Australia and New Zealand, according to the account.
In 1940, economist Colin Clark compared employment across countries and documented movement from agriculture toward manufacturing and services. He also observed that industry’s share of employment could rise and later fall. French economist Jean Fourastié argued in 1949 that services would absorb workers released as technical progress increased productivity in industry. The episode presents that argument as an idea to examine across the series, not as a guarantee that every displaced worker will find comparable work.
The categories are useful but not perfectly consistent. A software engineer employed by a carmaker might be classified as manufacturing in one dataset and services in another. Mining is also placed differently across statistical systems: the episode notes that Clark treated it as secondary, while Japan’s census places it in primary. Comparisons across countries and years can therefore depend on classification rules as well as economic change.
“My thesis, not a fact: within a decade or a few decades, automation could become a sector of its own, doing up to 90% of the work with no human hand.”
— Thorsten Meyer, author of the episode
Limits of the Sector Figures
The figures come from sources with different methods, dates and definitions. Lebergott’s historical US series counts the labor force aged 10 and older by industry, while the ILO figure cited for 2025 is a modelled estimate. The supplied episode material does not include full tables or methodological notes for all the China, Japan and manufacturing comparisons, making direct comparisons difficult.
Sector boundaries also vary, especially for mining and jobs that combine technical and service tasks. The source’s estimate that US manufacturing output in 2025 was about 1.9 times its 1979 level is reported as real output, but the supplied material does not detail the index or calculation. The proposed automation sector and 90% figure remain speculative claims by the author; the episode provides no evidence establishing when, or whether, such a shift will occur.
The Series Turns to Automation
Work After Work is described by Thorsten Meyer as a daily series planned for 60 episodes about how the economy is built, how employment has moved between sectors and which tasks may remain human as machines take on more work. The first episode sets out the historical framework; the author says a later installment, episode 48, will examine the automation-sector thesis. The source does not give publication dates for the remaining episodes, nor does it cite independent research that confirms the proposed forecast.
Key Questions
What are the three job sectors?
The primary sector takes resources from nature, the secondary sector makes or builds goods and infrastructure, and the tertiary sector provides services.
What does the episode say happened to US farm employment?
It cites estimates that farming accounted for 73.7% of the US labor force in 1800 and 12.0% in 1950, along with an ILO modelled estimate of 1.5% for 2025. The figures refer to employment shares, not food production.
Does fewer factory employment mean the US stopped manufacturing?
No. The episode says factory employment is about 35% below its June 1979 peak, while real manufacturing output in 2025 was about 1.9 times its 1979 level. Employment and output measure different things.
Is automation already a fourth economic sector?
The source does not establish that. Meyer describes automation becoming a separate sector as his thesis, and its proposed scale and timing remain uncertain.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
