in the service (i.e. ‘white collar’) sector throughout the EU since the late 1980s has
also been viewed as evidence of the increased demand for ‘high-skill’ (Green et al
1999) or or ‘knowledge’ work (OECD 1995). The continuing trend away from primary
industries and towards service industries has been confirmed by the EU’s report
Employment in Europe (EU 1998). It identified that the five largest growth sectors in
the period 1994-1997 were business services, health care, education, recreational
activities and hotels and restaurants (EU 1998), accounted for more than 70 per cent of
employment growth. In contrast, the five sectors where the greatest job losses occurred
were agriculture, textiles, the wood industry, iron and steel and retailing. These sectors
accounted for just over half of all the job losses and once again there was considerable
variation between individual Member States. For example, Portugual and Greece had
the lowest share of this growth, while the highest growth was recorded in Denmark, the
Netherlands and Sweden.
Furthermore, a spate of socio-economic structural forecasts, based on expectations
about employment trends in the following countries the Netherlands (ROA 1995), the
United Kingdom (Wilson and Webb 1995), Germany (Tessaring 1994) and Ireland
(Canny and Hughes 1995), have also argued that there will be a continuing trend
towards the service sector and ‘higher level occupations’ in these and other EU
countries. The reports concluded that although most of the new ‘white collar’ jobs in
the service sector would be in the professional, technical, administrative and
managerial occupations, there will also be an increase in low-skill ‘white collar’ work,
such as personal service occupations, (Robinson 1997; Nickel & Bell 1995) and a
continuing reduction in overall number of people employed in the manufacturing
industry (Watkins 1998). The forecasts also noted that although the introduction of
new technology in workplaces had resulted in the rise in the demand for ‘white-collar’
work, not all sectors were necessarily generating new jobs (ILO 1998), nor looking for
10