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TL;DR
Thorsten Meyer’s November 2, 2026, article opens Work After Work, a planned 60-episode series, with the three-sector model: primary work takes resources from nature, secondary work makes goods, and tertiary work provides services. The article uses historical employment figures to describe the long shift away from farming, while presenting automation becoming a distinct sector as Meyer’s thesis, not an established forecast.
Thorsten Meyer has launched Work After Work, a planned 60-episode series about how economies and jobs change, beginning with a framework that groups work into three broad sectors: resources, manufacturing and services. The opening article, published November 2, 2026, uses historical employment estimates to trace how workers moved away from farming and sets up a later debate about automation and the future of work.
The framework divides economic activity into the primary sector, which takes resources from nature; the secondary sector, which makes goods and builds infrastructure; and the tertiary sector, which provides services. Farming, fishing and forestry are primary activities. Manufacturing, construction and energy generally fall under secondary work, while retail, transport, education, health care and government are examples of services.
Meyer illustrates the categories with a loaf of bread: growing wheat is primary work, processing it into flour and bread is secondary work, and transporting and selling it are services. He also notes a limitation: the categories are statistical groupings, not fixed descriptions of every job. For example, a software engineer working for a carmaker may be classified differently depending on the system used. Mining, too, is counted as primary in many classifications but is assigned to the secondary sector in others.
The article gives examples of the employment shift. Drawing on estimates by economic historian Stanley Lebergott, it says farming accounted for 73.7% of the U.S. labor force in 1800, 40.2% in 1900 and 12.0% in 1950. The source cites an International Labour Organization modelled estimate of 1.5% in 2025. It also reports that services have employed more people worldwide than farming since 2001, based on ILO modelled estimates. These figures track employment shares; they do not mean that food production or manufacturing stopped.
Why Workers Move Between Sectors
The three-sector map gives readers a way to understand a major change in economic life: fewer workers are employed in farming, while employment has expanded in manufacturing and, especially, services. The shift matters because it affects where jobs are found, what kinds of skills employers seek and how communities respond when industries change. The model also helps distinguish the number of people employed in a sector from how much it produces.
Meyer addresses a common misconception by saying the United States still makes goods. In the article, he reports that U.S. factory employment is about 35% below its June 1979 peak, while real manufacturing output in 2025 was about 1.9 times its 1979 level. Those figures have different measures and should be read together: lower factory employment does not, by itself, show that manufacturing output has fallen. The article’s broader point is that technology and productivity can change how many workers are needed without eliminating a sector.
The article also frames a question that will recur across the series: when machines take over tasks, do displaced workers find work in other parts of the economy? The three-sector history documents previous shifts, but it cannot by itself establish what will happen with newer automation or artificial intelligence. That distinction makes the series’ stated aim relevant to workers, employers and policymakers weighing technology’s effects.
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How the Three-Sector Model Took Shape
The classification developed in the early 20th century from statistical language used in Australia and New Zealand. Meyer credits New Zealand economist Allan G. B. Fisher with adding “tertiary” to the primary and secondary categories. Fisher wrote about the framework in a book drafted in 1934 and published in 1935, according to the article. Economist Colin Clark then compared employment patterns across countries in The Conditions of Economic Progress, published in 1940.
Clark described workers moving from agriculture into manufacturing and then into commerce and services. He also observed that the share of employment in industry could rise and later decline. French economist Jean Fourastié offered a related explanation in a 1949 book: productivity improvements could free workers from some activities, while services might absorb some of them. These are historical arguments about economic change, not proof that every worker displaced by technology will find a comparable job.
The article places U.S. change alongside examples from Asia. It reports that China’s primary-sector share of employment fell from 83.5% in 1952 to 22.2% in 2024, and that Japan’s fell from 53.8% in 1920 to 3.2% in 2020. The periods, countries and data sources differ, so these numbers show national trajectories rather than a direct, controlled comparison.
“The map is less than a century old.”
— Thorsten Meyer, author of Work After Work
What the Sector Figures Cannot Show
The article presents a broad historical account, but the supplied material does not provide the full underlying tables, definitions or methodological notes for every figure. The estimates also come from different sources and years. In particular, the 1.5% U.S. farming share for 2025 is identified as an ILO modelled estimate, while Lebergott’s earlier U.S. figures use a labor-force series with its own stated population and industry definitions. They should not be treated as one uninterrupted measure without checking those methods.
Sector labels can also differ across statistical systems, and the article does not establish how every country classifies borderline work. Its claim about worldwide services employment overtaking farming in 2001 is attributed to ILO modelled estimates, but the provided material does not include the underlying series or uncertainty ranges. Meyer’s suggestion that automation could become a sector performing up to 90% of work is explicitly his thesis; no supporting forecast or time-specific evidence is supplied here. The article does not establish how many jobs automation will affect, when that might happen, or whether new work will offset job losses.
The Series Turns to Automation
Meyer says Work After Work is planned as a daily series of 60 episodes about how economies are built, how work moves between sectors and which tasks may remain human as machines take on more work. He says a later installment, Episode 48, will examine his automation thesis. The article does not give publication dates for that episode or for the full series schedule beyond describing it as daily.
The next development for readers is therefore the series’ treatment of specific technologies and jobs. Whether automation creates a distinct economic sector, how much work machines may perform and what happens to affected workers remain open questions—not findings established by this opening article.
Key Questions
What are the field, factory and office sectors?
They are informal labels for the primary sector (work taking resources from nature), the secondary sector (making goods and building), and the tertiary sector (providing services). The categories are broad and classification rules can vary.
No. An employment share tells readers what portion of workers are in an industry, not how much that industry produces. Meyer’s article uses the figures to describe workers’ changing distribution across sectors; it does not say food production fell as farming employment declined.
Does the article say the United States no longer manufactures goods?
No. Meyer says that claim is false. He reports that U.S. factory employment was about 35% below its June 1979 peak, while real manufacturing output in 2025 was about 1.9 times its 1979 level.
Is automation already a fourth economic sector?
The article does not establish that. Meyer proposes that automation could become a sector of its own, but explicitly presents this as his thesis, not a confirmed fact. He says a later episode will examine the idea.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
