The bar chart compares the proportions of employees in three sectors between four countries in 1980 and 2010.
Overall, the industry employed the highest percentage of employees while the agriculture was the smallest sector in all the countries, except for China, in 1980. In the following period, the same trend was shown, but the figures for services had a noticeable decline, while the reverse was true for the industry.
Looking at the initial period in detail, the highest proportions of workers were employed in the industry sector, three out of four countries employing more than 50% each. Amongst these countries, agriculture showed the lowest percentage at approximately less than 10%. China, on the other hand, was an outlier, hiring around 40% of workers in the industry sector, while employing the vast majority in the agriculture at close to 70%. The shares of employees in the services were distributed quite evenly across the countries, between 40% and 50%, respectively.
In 2010, the job markets in these countries showed a few noticeable changes. Firstly, the percentage of employees in the industry sector increased considerably by 20-30% in all the countries, but in China, where the figures did not change. However, the proportion of agriculture employees dropped to less than 10% in Germany, the USA, and Japan respectively while plummeting to 50% in China. The services also experienced a massive drop, from around 50% across all the nations to close to 40% in Germany and The USA, while Japan and China employing 30% and 20% respectively.