Types of work: work in an economic sense

The types of work Work in the economic sense are classified according to different points of view.

Structure of the labor force: For statistical purposes, the entire resident population of a country is divided into the labor force and the unemployed.

Labor force: Employed persons are all domestic and foreign self-employed and non-self-employed persons who are capable and willing to work. In the statistics, they are recorded on the one hand according to their activity in economic sectors (industry and craft, trade and transport, public services, agriculture and forestry and others) and on the other hand according to their position in the profession (workers, employees, civil servants and self-employed).

Unemployed: Unemployed people are people who are not yet or no longer professionally active. They include children, pensioners, retirees, non-working wives / husbands.

Types of work work

Intellectual and physical work

A clear and unambiguous demarcation of mental and physical work is not possible because more or less mental and physical functions are required in every work. If you want to use this classification, you should speak of predominantly mental or predominantly physical work.

Example: Mostly intellectual work is z. B. given by entrepreneurs and skilled workers, predominantly physical work by craftsmen and skilled workers.

Dispositive and executive work

Dispositive work is managerial activity. It includes the functions of planning, organization and supervision. Dispositive work is done e.g. B. the entrepreneur and also the higher and middle management.

Executive or executive work is work that is bound by instructions. Their execution is precisely determined by arrangements or technical equipment. The activities of an employee in the commercial administration and also those of a worker at the lathe can be added to the predominantly executive work.

Learned, unskilled and semi-skilled work

A distinction is made here according to the previous education of the worker. You have learned work if you have completed vocational training and passed a corresponding final examination (in front of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Chamber of Crafts, etc.). The skilled employee or worker has learned the typical activities for his profession. Unskilled work is given if no such training has taken place. The semi-skilled worker only has a command of a certain part of a larger area of work in which he specializes.