The feature of the change we have witnessed in the last three decades is the fact that
the traditional industrial sector has fallen away drastically – both measured as a share of GNP and in
terms of employment – in all mature industrial economies. Instead, a sector which, for lack of a better
term, is normally called "the service sector" is expanding strongly. Despite this, however, it would be
premature in this context to speak of the death of the industrial society and the emergence of a new
post-industrial service economy. Many of these new "services" are in fact "industry-related services"
and have developed against the backdrop of the introduction of new technology and/or new ways oforganizing work and production. The advent of information and communication technology (ICT), for
example, has meant that a whole range of tasks which were previously considered "industrial" are now
performed from a desk in an office. In other cases, outsourcing has seen what was previously
industrial work within a company transferred to separate firms which perform these tasks primarily in
the form of services. In addition to this a "purer" service sector in communications, service, trade,
education, health care, etc. has taken a larger share of the labour market. In Sweden, a large proportion
of this increase – at least up until the early 1990s – took place with the public sector as the employer.
This is especially true in the health care and education sectors. In other mature industrial economies
the private service sector has expanded the most (Magnusson 1999).