Klaus-Dieter Schmidt

Prospective Structural Changes in the West German Economy

Projections up to the year 2000 show that the West German economy will undergo deep transformations as per capita income rises. Service activities will expand at a rate above average, while manufacturing and building industries are going to shrink in relative terms. We expect labor displacement in industry to continue, whereas the labor absorption capacity of the services sector might grow steadily. As industrial employment in West Germany has been found to be still higher than one would derive from “normal patterns”, the projected decline of industry’s share in labor input implies that, by the year 2000, the overall employment structure should be closer to the country’s level of development than it is nowadays.