Expansion of the Tertiary Sector and Social-Inequality - Is There A New Service Proletariat Emerging in the Federal-Republic-Of-Germany

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that unskilled service occupations have not become increasingly important as Germany moved towards a post-industrial society. In Germany, unskilled service jobs are neither stopgap jobs for the youth nor particularly important for elderly workers. Instead, they seem to constitute a collecting vessel or, more accurately, a dumping ground for middle-aged workers coming from other - often declining - occupations. In particular, women in unskilled service jobs very often interrupt employment due to family work. We also demonstrate that the division between unskilled and skilled jobs is to a great extent based on the specific structure of the vocational training system in Germany. This creates a close relationship between unskilled manual occupations and unskilled service occupations in terms of mobility. The main connection, however, is that unskilled service jobs absorb redundant workers from the manufacturing industry. The internal composition of unskilled services is therefore far more heterogeneous than is the case in the traditional manual proletariat. Thus, we conclude that there is no new specific service proletariat emerging in Germany.