At the core of who the service sector services, and the expanding need for service sector employees, is a potential to refocus how we integrate our understanding of community and employment, and how they build an economy that is centered on the quality of life for people.
The service sector (as defined by the U.S. Census) is a broad category:
- Accommodation and Food Services (Sector 72)
- Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services (Sector 56)
- Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (Sector 71)
- Educational Services (Sector 61)
- Finance and Insurance (Sector 52)
- Health Care and Social Assistance (Sector 62)
- Information (Sector 51)
- Management of Companies and Enterprises (Sector 55)
- Other Services (Except Public Administration) (Sector 81)
- Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (Sector 54)
- Real Estate and Rental and Leasing (Sector 53)
- Retail Trade (Sector 44-45)
- Transportation and Warehousing (Sector 48-49)
- Utilities (Sector 22)
- Wholesale Trade (Sector 42)
From: http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/economic.html
These growth and focus on these sectors is different from and potentially more diverse than tooling up for a manufacturing industry, or a specific kind of I.T. training. What we are seeing in healthcare is only the first indicator of a need our communities will face for all kinds of services that cater to the things we utilize to participate and enjoy life. As our communities are faced with limited resources, more and more our choices will become thoughtful, aesthetic, and experiential choices dictated by the quality and value of the service, rather than availability and affordability. In a time with limited resources, cheap and inferior is wasteful. There is an opportunity to re-engage our communities with what they need at a local level to find fulfillment that is not based on a material products, but based in human relationships and interactions that incorporate meaningfulness.
If an external environment reduces the availability of material consumption, that as a nation we have looked to for fulfillment, where do we turn to provide that stimulus? What had become a primarily private activity delivered by UPS trucks in nondescript cardboard boxes can shift to more public arenas, to areas of commons, or varying degrees of commons where the activities, the action and engagement, is what stimulates fulfillment.
There is a potential, as work hours are potentially curtailed in employment, for a different kind of work to supplant that, one that is based more in care giving, community, and creativity. How does one person invest in the world that he or she creates and inhabits for him or herself? How does an institution help students inspire, develop, and legitimize the independence and interdependence necessary to effect these changes in the workforce? How does the conceptualization of work ethic and purpose change for employees and industry? How do the artists balance their role in a commons based experiential economy with the material needs to continue the pursuit of art making?
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