Chur
Chur or Coire is the capital and largest town of the Swiss canton of Grisons and lies in the Grisonian Rhine Valley, where the Rhine turns towards the north, in the northern part of the canton. The city, located on the right bank of the Rhine, is reputedly the oldest town of Switzerland; the official language of Chur is German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the High Alemannic Swiss German dialect. Archaeological evidence of settlement at the site, in the Eastern Alps, goes back as far as the Pfyn culture, making Chur one of the oldest settlements in Switzerland. Remains and objects from the Bronze and Iron Ages have been found in the eastern sector of the current city's centre; these include Bronze Age Urnfield and Luco-Meluno settlements from 1300-800 BC and Iron Age settlements from the 5th to 3rd centuries BC. The Roman Empire conquered the area that came to be known as the Roman province of Raetia in 15 BC. Under emperor Diocletian, the existing settlement of Curia Raetorum was made the capital of the newly established province of Raetia prima.
In the 4th century Chur became the seat of the first Christian bishopric north of the Alps. Despite a legend assigning its foundation to an alleged Briton king, St. Lucius, the first known bishop is one Asinio in 451 AD. After the invasion of the Ostrogoths, it was rechristened Theodoricopolis; the city suffered several invasions, by the Magyars in 925-926, when the cathedral was destroyed, by the Saracens, but afterwards it flourished thanks to its location, where the roads from several major Alpine transit routes come together and continue down the Rhine. The routes had been used under the Romans but acquired greater importance under the Ottonian dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Otto I granted the town the right to collect tolls in 952 and appointed his vassal Hartpert as bishop of Chur in 958, giving the bishopric numerous privileges. In 1170 the bishop became a prince-bishop and kept total control over the road between Chur and Chiavenna. In the 13th century the town had some 1,300 inhabitants, was surrounded by a line of walls.
In the 14th century, at least six fires damaged or destroyed the monasteries of St. Luzi and St. Nicolai, St. Martin's church and twice destroyed much of the town; the Gotteshausbund was formed in 1367 in Chur to resist the rising power of the Bishopric of Chur and the House of Habsburg. Chur was one of the places the Leagues' assemblies met regularly. A burgmeister of Chur is first mentioned in 1413, The bishop's residence was attacked by the inhabitants in 1418 and 1422, when a series of concessions were wrung out of him. On 27 April 1464 most of the town was destroyed in a fire, which only the bishop's estates and St. Luzi monastery survived. With the bishops' power waning as he came under the influence of the nearby Habsburg County of Tyrol, the citizens sent a delegation to Emperor Frederick III; the Emperor reconfirmed the historic rights of Chur and granted them extensive new rights which freed the city from the bishop's power. In 1465 the citizens wrote a constitution. All government positions were restricted to guild members, allowing the guilds to regulate all aspects of life in Chur.
Because guild membership was the only route to political power, local patricians and nobles became guild members joining the winemakers guild. The Chur lead League of the House of God allied with the Grey League and the League of the Ten Jurisdictions in 1471 to form the Three Leagues. In 1489 Chur obtained the right to have a tribunal of its own, but never had the title of Free Imperial City. In 1497-98, concerned about Habsburg expansion and with the Bishop of Chur quarrelling with Austria, the Three Leagues formed an alliance with the Swiss Confederation. In 1499 the Swabian War broke out between the Three Leagues and Austria and expanded to include the Confederation. During the war, troops from Chur fought under the Bishop's Vogt Heinrich Ammann in the Lower Engadin, in Prättigau and near Balzers. Troops from Chur took part in the 1512 invasion of the Valtellina and the Second Musso War in 1530-31. In 1523 Johannes Comander was appointed parish priest of St. Martin's Church and began preaching the new faith of the Protestant Reformation.
It spread and by 1524-25 the bishop had fled the city and Protestant services were taking place in the churches of St. Martin and St. Regula; the Ilanz articles of 1524 and 1526 allowed each resident of the Three Leagues to choose their religion, reduced the political and secular power of the Bishop of Chur and all monasteries in League territory. By 1527 all of Chur, except the bishop's estates, had adopted the Reformation. On 1 January 1529 Abbot Theodore Schlegel was publicly beheaded. Bishop Thomas Planta, a friend of St. Charles Borromeo, but without success, to suppress Protestantism, he died poisoned, 5 May 1565. During the 16th century the German language started to prevail over Romansh. In 1479 about 300 houses and stalls burned in another fire. Nearly a century on 23 July 1574 a fire destroyed 174 houses and 114 stalls, or about half the city. Two years on 21 October 1576, another 53 houses were burned. Two years after the 1576 fire, the perpetrator, Hauptmann Stör, was executed. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Three Leagues became the canton of Graubünden in 1803.
The guild constitution of the city of Chur lasted until 1839, while in
Switzerland
Switzerland the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated in western and southern Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities; the sovereign state is a federal republic bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2. While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of 8.5 million people is concentrated on the plateau, where the largest cities are to be found: among them are the two global cities and economic centres Zürich and Geneva. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the late medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria and Burgundy. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648; the country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation.
It pursues an active foreign policy and is involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to numerous international organisations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association, but notably not part of the European Union, the European Economic Area or the Eurozone. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties. Spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French and Romansh. Although the majority of the population are German-speaking, Swiss national identity is rooted in a common historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy, Alpine symbolism. Due to its linguistic diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names: Schweiz. On coins and stamps, the Latin name – shortened to "Helvetia" – is used instead of the four national languages.
Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Switzerland ranks at or near the top globally in several metrics of national performance, including government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic competitiveness and human development. Zürich and Basel have all three been ranked among the top ten cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the first ranked second globally, according to Mercer in 2018; the English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, an obsolete term for the Swiss, in use during the 16th to 19th centuries. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse in use since the 16th century; the name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, one of the Waldstätten cantons which formed the nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy. The Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for "Confederates", used since the 14th century.
The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes perhaps related to swedan ‘to burn’, referring to the area of forest, burned and cleared to build; the name was extended to the area dominated by the canton, after the Swabian War of 1499 came to be used for the entire Confederation. The Swiss German name of the country, Schwiiz, is homophonous to that of the canton and the settlement, but distinguished by the use of the definite article; the Latin name Confoederatio Helvetica was neologized and introduced after the formation of the federal state in 1848, harking back to the Napoleonic Helvetic Republic, appearing on coins from 1879, inscribed on the Federal Palace in 1902 and after 1948 used in the official seal.. Helvetica is derived from the Helvetii, a Gaulish tribe living on the Swiss plateau before the Roman era. Helvetia appears as a national personification of the Swiss confederacy in the 17th century with a 1672 play by Johann Caspar Weissenbach.
Switzerland has existed as a state in its present form since the adoption of the Swiss Federal Constitution in 1848. The precursors of Switzerland established a protective alliance at the end of the 13th century, forming a loose confederation of states which persisted for centuries; the oldest traces of hominid existence in Switzerland date back about 150,000 years. The oldest known farming settlements in Switzerland, which were found at Gächlingen, have been dated to around 5300 BC; the earliest known cultural tribes of the area were members of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel. La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age from around 450 BC under some influence from the Gree
Fachhochschule
A Fachhochschule, abbreviated FH, or University of Applied Sciences is a German tertiary education institution, specializing in topical areas. Fachhochschulen were first founded in Germany, were adopted in Austria, Switzerland and Greece. An increasing number of Fachhochschulen are abbreviated as Hochschule, the generic term in Germany for institutions awarding academic degrees in higher education, or expanded as Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften. Universities of Applied Sciences are designed with a focus on teaching professional skills. Swiss law calls Fachhochschulen and Universitäten "separate but equal". Due to the Bologna process, Universitäten and Fachhochschulen award equivalent academic bachelor's and master's degrees. Fachhochschulen do not award doctoral degrees themselves. Combined with the rule that they appoint only professors with a professional career of at least three years outside the university system, those are the two major ways in which they differ from traditional universities.
However, they may run doctoral programs. Due to the Bologna process, most German Universitäten and Fachhochschulen have ceased admitting students to programs leading to the traditional German Diplom, but now apply the new degree standard of Bachelor's and Master's degrees. In line with the Bologna process, bachelor's and master's degrees awarded by both types of universities are equivalent. With a Master's from either, one can now enter a doctoral degree program at a Universität, but a graduate with a bachelor's degree from either is unable to proceed directly to a doctoral degree program in Germany. With the master's degree of either of the institutions a graduate can enter the höheren Dienst career for civil servants; the Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences and Arts is a type of German institution of higher education that emerged from the traditional Engineering Schools and similar professional schools of other disciplines. It differs from the traditional university through its more practical orientation.
Subjects taught at Fachhochschulen include engineering, computer science and management, arts and design, communication studies, social service, other professional fields. The traditional degree awarded at a Fachhochschule was the Diplom. Coursework totaled eight semesters of full-time study, with various options for specialization. In addition, there were one or two practical training semesters to provide hands-on experience in real working environments; the program concluded after five years, with the final examination and a thesis, an extensive project on a current practical or scientific aspect of the profession. In an effort to make educational degrees more compatible within Europe, the German Diplom degrees were phased out by 2010 and replaced by the European bachelor's and master's degree; the Fachhochschule represents a close relationship between higher education and the employment system. Their practical orientation makes them attractive to employers. Today, Fachhochschulen conduct research.
Research projects sponsored by industry. In Germany the right to confer doctoral degrees is still reserved to Universitäten. In 2016, Fulda University of Applied Sciences became the first Fachhochschule to be conferred this right for its graduate center for social sciences. Several Fachhochschulen run doctoral programs where the degree itself is awarded by a partner university in Germany or abroad. There are a few universities, such as Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and Bundeswehr University Munich, which run Fachhochschule courses in addition to their normal courses; the Austrian government decided to establish Fachhochschulen in 1990. In the academic year of 2010/11, there were twenty-one institutions considered as Fachhochschulen plus a number of other providers of Fachhochschulstudiengängen with a total of over 27,000 students. About a third of the 136 Fachhochschulstudiengänge are organized as part-time courses of studies; the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences UAS are vocational universities established in Switzerland in 1995 following the model of the German Fachhochschulen.
They are called Fachhochschule in German, Haute école specialisée in French and scuola universitaria professionale in Italian. The Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences offer third level education, continuing education, services businesses and institutions, produce applied research activities. In 2013 there are seven public UAS approved by the Swiss Federal Council in 1998 and two private UAS approved by the Federal Council in 2005 and 2008; the public UAS are run by one or more cantons. UAS have the institutional mandate to provide degree programmes, continuing education and training, to conduct applied research and to offer services to companies and institutions. Students with a finished apprenticeship and a Fachmatura and students with the Matura and a practical year in a company can access further education within the Universities for Applied Science; the UAS and their Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees are federally accredited. The Federal Department of Eco
2007 Swiss federal election
Elections to the Swiss Federal Assembly, the federal parliament of Switzerland, were held on Sunday, 21 October 2007. In a few cantons, a second round of the elections to the Council of States was held on 11 November, 18 November, 25 November 2007. For the 48th legislative term of the federal parliament, voters in 26 cantons elected all 200 members of the National Council as well as 43 out of 46 members of the Council of States; the other three members of the Council of States for that term of service were elected at an earlier date. On 12 December 2007, the newly elected legislature elected the Swiss federal government, the Swiss Federal Council, for a four-year-term; the results reflected yet another rise in support for the strongest party, the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party, at 29% of the popular vote, the growth of the Green and Green Liberal parties at the expense of the Social Democrats. The Swiss People's Party came out of the election as the strongest party, rising another 2.3% to 29.0% of the popular vote.
Among the left-wing parties, support of the Social Democrats eroded to the benefit of the Green and Green Liberal parties. The right-wing parties won 64 seats made up of the SVP with 62 seats and a single seat of the Christian right Federal Democratic Union and the regional Ticino League respectively; the left-wing parties won 65 seats, with 43 of the Social Democrats, 20 of the Green party, the Christian-left Christian Social Party and the far-left Labour Party with a single seat each. The centrist parties won 71 seats, with the CVP and the centre-right FDP each having won 31 seats, the remaining 9 seats won by minor parties: Liberals, 4 seats. 59 of 200 seats were won by women, as compared to 50 in 2003. Ricardo Lumengo is notable as the first black Swiss national councillor. 23 incumbents did not get re-elected and lost their mandate, among them Zürich right wing politician Ulrich Schlüer. The turnout of the election was 48,9% a rise of 3,7% from the previous elections in 2003. Contrary to the developments in the National Council, the Council of States remains dominated by the traditional centrist parties FDP and CVP.
Robert Cramer is the first member of the Green Party to be elected to the Council of States, joined in the second round by Luc Recordon of Vaud. Verena Diener of the Green Party, wins a Council of States seat for the newly founded Green Liberal Party. Christine Egerszegi of Aargau is the first woman councillor elected in that canton. "Political Map of Switzerland" "Hermann, M. und Leuthold, H.: Die politische Landkarte des Nationalrats 1999-2003. In: Tages-Anzeiger, 11. Oktober, 2003, Zürich." Swiss Federal Statistical Office. "Nationalratswahlen 2007. Der Wandel der Parteienlandschaft seit 1971". NSD: European Election Database - Switzerland publishes regional level election data.
Swiss People's Party
The Swiss People's Party known as the Democratic Union of the Centre, is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Albert Rösti, the party is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 65 members of the National Council and 5 of the Council of States; the SVP originated in 1971 as a merger of the Party of Farmers and Independents and the Democratic Party, while the BGB in turn had been founded in the context of the emerging local farmers' parties in the late 1910s. The SVP didn't witness any increased support beyond that of the BGB, retaining around 11% of the vote through the 1970s and 1980s; this changed however during the 1990s, when the party underwent deep structural and ideological changes under the influence of Christoph Blocher. In line with the changes fostered by Blocher, the party started to focus on issues such as euroscepticism and opposition to mass immigration; as of 2015 the SVP has 54 seats in the Federal Assembly, its vote share of 28.9% in the 2007 Federal Council election was the highest vote recorded for a single party in Switzerland until 2015, when it surpassed its own record with 29.4%.
When Blocher failed to win re-election as a Federal Councillor in 2007, moderates within the party split off, forming the Conservative Democratic Party. The early origins of the SVP go back to the late 1910s, when numerous cantonal farmers' parties were founded in agrarian, German-speaking parts of Switzerland. While the Free Democratic Party had earlier been a popular party for farmers, this changed during World War I when the party had defended the interests of industrialists and consumer circles; when proportional representation was introduced in 1919, the new farmers' parties won significant electoral support in Zürich and Bern, also gained representation in parliament and government. By 1929, the coalition of farmers' parties had gained enough influence to get one of their leaders, Rudolf Minger, elected to the Federal Council. In 1936, a representative party was founded on the national level, called the Party of Farmers and Independents. During the 1930s, the BGB entered the mainstream of Swiss politics as a right-wing conservative party in the bourgeois bloc.
While the party opposed any kind of socialist ideas such as internationalism and anti-militarism, it sought to represent local Swiss traders and farmers against big business and international capital. The BGB contributed to the establishment of the Swiss national ideology known as the Geistige Landesverteidigung, responsible for the growing Swiss sociocultural and political cohesion from the 1930s. In the party's fight against left-wing ideologies, sections of party officials and farmers voiced understanding, or failed to distance themselves from the emerging fascist movements. After World War II, the BGB contributed to the establishment of the characteristic Swiss post-war consensual politics, social agreements and economic growth policies; the party continued to be a reliable political partner with the Swiss Conservative People's Party and the Free Democratic Party. In 1971, the BGB changed its name to the Swiss People's Party after it merged with the Democratic Party from Glarus and Graubünden.
The Democratic Party had been supported by workers, the SVP sought to expand its electoral base towards these, as the traditional BGB base in the rural population had started to lose its importance in the post-war era. As the Democratic Party had represented centrist, social-liberal positions, the course of the SVP shifted towards the political centre following internal debates; the new party however continued to see its level of support at around 11%, the same as the former BGB throughout the post-war era. Internal debates continued, the 1980s saw growing conflicts between the Bern and Zürich cantonal branches, where the former branch represented the centrist faction, the latter looked to put new issues on the political agenda; when the young entrepreneur Christoph Blocher was elected president of the Zürich SVP in 1977, he declared his intent to oversee significant change in the political line of the Zürich SVP, bringing an end to debates that aimed to open the party up to a wide array of opinions.
Blocher soon consolidated his power in Zürich, began to renew the organisational structures, campaigning style and political agenda of the local branch. The young members of the party was boosted with the establishment of a cantonal Young SVP in 1977, as well as political training courses; the ideology of the Zürich branch was reinforced, the rhetoric hardened, which resulted in the best election result for the Zürich branch in fifty years in the 1979 federal election, with an increase from 11.3% to 14.5%. This was contrasted with the stable level in the other cantons, although the support stagnated in Zürich through the 1980s; the struggle between the SVP's largest branches of Bern and Zürich continued into the early 1990s. While the Bern-oriented faction represented the old moderate style, the Zürich-oriented wing led by Christoph Blocher represented a new radical right-wing populist agenda; the Zürich wing began to politicise asylum issues, the question of European integration started to dominate Swiss political debates.
They adopted more confrontational methods. The Zürich-wing followingly started to gain ground in the party at the expense of the Bern-wing, the party became increasing
Churwalden
Churwalden is a municipality in the Plessur Region in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. On 1 January 2010 the municipalities of Parpan merged into Churwalden. Churwalden is first mentioned in 1149 as silva Augeria. In 1191 it was mentioned as de Curwalde. Churwalden has an area, of 48.53 km2. Of this area, about 43.8 % is used for agricultural purposes. Of the rest of the land, 3.7% is settled and 12.9% is unproductive land. In the 2004/09 survey a total of 128 ha or about 2.6% of the total area was covered with buildings, an increase of 27 ha over the 1984/85 amount. Of the agricultural land, 1 ha is used for orchards and vineyards, 1,003 ha is fields and grasslands and 1,382 ha consists of alpine grazing areas. Since 1984/85 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by 252 ha. Over the same time period the amount of forested land has increased by 208 ha. Rivers and lakes cover 33 ha in the municipality. Before 2017, the municipality was located in Churwalden sub-district of the Plessur district on the Rabiusa river and near the Lenzerheide Pass.
The village lies in the valley between the resort Lenzerheide. The Lenzerheide Bergbahnen AG offers access to the skiing area of Lenzerheide as well as Stätzerhorn, Danis and Rothorn; the longest toboggan run is in Churwalden. The run at Pradaschier is 3.5 kilometers long. At the end of 2013 the ski resort was linked with Arosa by cable-car, creating the new ski resort of Arosa Lenzerheide. Since transport passes work in both resorts; the municipality consists of the linear village of Churwalden and the hamlets of Passugg and scattered farm houses. The municipalities of Churwalden and Parpan sought approval from the Canton to merge on 1 January 2010 into a new municipality to be known as Churwalden. Churwalden has a population of 2,012; as of 2015, 18.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. In 2015 a small minority was born in Germany. Over the last 5 years the population has changed at a rate of -5.23%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2015, was 10.3, while the death rate was 9.3 per thousand residents.
Most of the population speaks German, with Turkish being second most Romansh being third. As of 2015, children and teenagers make up 17.0% of the population, while adults are 65.1% of the population and seniors make up 17.9%. In 2015 there were 879 single residents, 870 people who were married or in a civil partnership, 123 widows or widowers, 155 divorced residents and 3 people who did not answer the question. In 2015 there were 918 private households in Churwalden with an average household size of 2.17 persons. In 2015 about 59% of all buildings in the municipality were single family homes, greater than the percentage in the canton and about the same as the percentage nationally. Of the 419 inhabited buildings in the municipality, in 2000, about 54.2% were single family homes and 26.7% were multiple family buildings. Additionally, about 32.0% of the buildings were built before 1919, while 7.9% were built between 1991 and 2000. In 2014 the rate of construction of new housing units per 1000 residents was 6.29.
The vacancy rate for the municipality, in 2016, was 0.92%. The historical population is given in the following chart: The Catholic Church of St. Maria and Michael, Parpan Castle and the Wohnturm of the old Churwalden Abbey are listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance. In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the SVP with 30.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP, the FDP and the BDP. In the federal election, a total of 665 votes were cast, the voter turnout was 46.9%. The 2015 election saw a large change in the voting when compared to 2011; the percentage of the vote received by the SP increased from 13.2% in 2011 to 18.4% in 2015, the SVP increased from 23.8% to 30.4%, while the percentage that the received BDP dropped from 20.2% to 14.5%. In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP; the next three most popular parties were the SP, the FDP and the CVP. In Churwalden about 64% of the population have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education.
Churwalden is a semitourist community. As of 2014, there were a total of 862 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 102 people worked in 40 businesses in the primary economic sector; the secondary sector employed 192 workers in 32 separate businesses. There were 7 small businesses with a total of 120 employees; the tertiary sector provided 568 jobs in 130 businesses. There were 7 small businesses with a total of 197 employees. In 2015 a total of 6.3% of the population received social assistance. In 2011 the unemployment rate in the municipality was 1.7%. In 2015 local hotels had a total of 37,210 overnight stays, of which 30.4% were international visitors. In 2015 the average cantonal and church tax rate in the municipality for a couple with two children making 80,000 SFr. was 3.5% while the rate for a single person making 150,000 SFr. was 15.1%, both of which are close to the average for the canton. The canton's tax rate is close to the national average. In 2013 the average income in the municipality per tax payer was 61,775 SFr. and the per person average was 29,420 SFr
Tertiary sector of the economy
The tertiary sector or service sector is the third of the three economic sectors of the three-sector theory. The others are the secondary sector, the primary sector; the service sector consists of the production of services instead of end products. Services include attention, access and affective labor; the production of information has long been regarded as a service, but some economists now attribute it to a fourth sector, the quaternary sector. The tertiary sector of industry involves the provision of services to other businesses as well as final consumers. Services may involve the transport and sale of goods from producer to a consumer, as may happen in wholesaling and retailing, pest control or entertainment; the goods may be transformed in the process of providing the service, as happens in the restaurant industry. However, the focus is on people interacting with people and serving the customer rather than transforming physical goods, it is sometimes hard to define whether a given company is part and parcel of the secondary or tertiary sector.
And it is not only companies. In order to classify a business as a service, one can use classification systems such as the United Nations' International Standard Industrial Classification standard, the United States' Standard Industrial Classification code system and its new replacement, the North American Industrial Classification System, the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community in the EU and similar systems elsewhere; these governmental classification systems have a first-level hierarchy that reflects whether the economic goods are tangible or intangible. For purposes of finance and market research, market-based classification systems such as the Global Industry Classification Standard and the Industry Classification Benchmark are used to classify businesses that participate in the service sector. Unlike governmental classification systems, the first level of market-based classification systems divides the economy into functionally related markets or industries.
The second or third level of these hierarchies reflects whether goods or services are produced. For the last 100 years, there has been a substantial shift from the primary and secondary sectors to the tertiary sector in industrialized countries; this shift is called tertiarisation. The tertiary sector is now the largest sector of the economy in the Western world, is the fastest-growing sector. In examining the growth of the service sector in the early Nineties, the globalist Kenichi Ohmae noted that: "In the United States 70 percent of the workforce works in the service sector; these are not busboys and live-in maids. Many of them are in the professional category, they are earning as much as manufacturing workers, more.”Economies tend to follow a developmental progression that takes them from a heavy reliance on agriculture and mining, toward the development of manufacturing and toward a more service-based structure. The first economy to follow this path in the modern world was the United Kingdom.
The speed at which other economies have made the transition to service-based economies has increased over time. Manufacturing tended to be more open to international trade and competition than services. However, with dramatic cost reduction and speed and reliability improvements in the transportation of people and the communication of information, the service sector now includes some of the most intensive international competition, despite residual protectionism. Service providers face obstacles selling services that goods-sellers face. Services are intangible, making it difficult for potential customers to understand what they will receive and what value it will hold for them. Indeed, such as consultants and providers of investment services, offer no guarantees of the value for price paid. Since the quality of most services depends on the quality of the individuals providing the services, "people costs" are a high fraction of service costs. Whereas a manufacturer may use technology and other techniques to lower the cost of goods sold, the service provider faces an unrelenting pattern of increasing costs.
Product differentiation is difficult. For example, how does one choose one investment adviser over another, since they are seen to provide identical services? Charging a premium for services is an option only for the most established firms, who charge extra based upon brand recognition. Examples of tertiary industries may include: Telecommunication Hospitality industry/tourism Mass media Healthcare/hospitals Public health Pharmacy Information technology Waste disposal Consulting Gambling Retail sales Fast-moving consumer goods Franchising Real estate Education Financial services Banking Insurance Investment management Professional services Accounting Legal services Management consultingTransportation Below is a list of countries by service output at market exchange rates in 2016. Quaternary sector of the economy Indigo Era National Occupational Research Agenda Service Sector Council, USA Media related to Service industries at Wikimedia Commons
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