In all economic sectors, the services contribute to critical labour market problems. Also with regard to environmental protection, jobs in the services have future potential. The supposition that jobs in environmental protection are part of the general tertiarisation trend in the economy is supported by a 1996 study of leading economic research institutes in which the service sector was labelled the chief winner of environmental policy.
This study aims to present the current state of employment in services that can be classified as environmentally oriented. Activities can be classified as environmentally oriented if they serve environmental protection, primarily or secondarily (also environmentally compatible traffic, for example). Moreover, factors that advance and those that constrain employment are analysed, job-creation potential and prospects are shown, and finally approaches for assisting environmentally oriented services are discussed.
To include the broadest spectrum of services, the Ifo Institute uses a institutional/functional approach aimed at a combination of supply-side and demand-side data. The institutional framework of the official statistics, which is oriented towards a deep breakdown according to economic sectors, divisions, classes and sub-classes, etc., will be maintained in principle in order to allow for an aggregation of data; it will be departed from in various places, however, so that service activities outside the services structure will also be considered. This will at least partly comply with the demand for redefining the services concept in order to demonstrate the importance of services for sustainable development.
Use of the data for identifying environmentally oriented services and their employment effects was based on a combined bottom-up/top-down approach. Official and secondary sources as well as estimates are linked and harmonised, even at the cost of unavoidable uncertainty. For this purpose, a discussion is presented of the delimitation and inclusion approaches in the framework of primary and secondary statistics or studies and their problems. Finally, service activities are included for which no reliable quantitative data is available. These data will at least be qualitatively systematised in the hope of an improved data situation in the future.
The presentation of the current status of the most important services presents a very multifaceted and heterogeneous picture in light of the above-mentioned delimitation problems. Activities which at first glance are not connected with environmental protection or the service economy can, under more careful consideration, be described as environmentally oriented services. Difficulties are also posed by a direct comparison of individual environmentally oriented services that hardly show any common features in terms of structure or content. A rough, if not always exact, matrix for systematisation is a subdivision into traditional and new environmentally oriented services. Among the traditional services, waste disposal services and waste water management are discussed, for example. The new environmentally oriented services include energy and building management, new mobility services, environmentally oriented financial and insurance services and eco tourism.
The concepts for delimitation and inclusion and the description of the current state of important environmentally oriented services form the basis for the quantitative estimation of the current level of employment. For 1998 around 820,000 jobs in environmentally oriented services were identified in Germany, which is about 2.5% of total domestic employment and must be viewed as a lower limit. They include direct, positive and tangible gross employment effects. Environmentally oriented services are performed in all sectors of the German economy. Roughly speaking, it can be assumed that ca. two thirds of the jobs in environmentally oriented services are in the so-called services sector and one third are in the primary and secondary sectors. An important role is played by what is called "Other Services". Furthermore the employment effects can be differentiated according to whether they accrue to the private or the public sector. Apart from purely public or purely private environmental services, those services can also be provided by public firms, firms strongly influenced by the government or non-profit organisations. Roughly speaking, it can be said that about two thirds of all jobs related to environmentally oriented services are found in the private sector.
A direct comparison with the previous study of 1996 is not possible due to different delimitation methods. The review of the methodical approach should be considered one of the main contributions of this study, though. Consequently it can not be concluded, on a direct comparison of the studies, that there was employment growth between 1994 and 1998, the two years on which the studies are based. However, predominantly positive employment trends can be shown for individual, environmentally oriented service areas. It needs to be considered that employment trends result from structural changes, which also affect the definition of environmental jobs. Therefore, the question of what is considered to be environmental protection in general and an environmentally oriented service in particular needs to be raised again and again.
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