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TL;DR
ThorstenMeyerAI.com published the first episode of its 60-part Work After Work series on Nov. 2, 2026, using the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors to explain how employment has shifted over time. The source cites long-term changes in the United States, China and Japan, while presenting the idea of automation as a future sector as the author’s thesis, not an established fact.
ThorstenMeyerAI.com published the first episode of its planned 60-part series, Work After Work, on Nov. 2, 2026, introducing the three-sector model used to describe how employment shifts between natural-resource work, production and services. The installment argues that this basic framework can help readers understand past changes in work and future debates about automation, while distinguishing the author’s forecasts from historical data.
The model groups jobs into three broad categories. The primary sector takes resources from nature, including farming, fishing and forestry; mining is included in many classifications, but not all. The secondary sector makes or builds things, covering manufacturing, construction and energy supply. The tertiary sector includes services such as trade, transport, health care, education and government.
The source uses a loaf of bread to show how the categories connect: growing wheat is primary work, milling and baking it in a plant are secondary work, and transporting or selling it are tertiary work. It also cautions that the divisions are imperfect. A software engineer working for a car manufacturer, for example, may be counted differently depending on the statistical system.
The episode says services have employed more people worldwide than farming since 2001, based on International Labour Organization modelled estimates. It also reports that the US share of workers employed in farming fell from 73.7% in 1800 to 12.0% in 1950 in estimates by economic historian Stanley Lebergott; the ILO’s modelled estimate for 2025 is 1.5%. Those figures use different sources and periods, so they should not be treated as a single consistent series.
How Jobs Shift Between Sectors
The three-sector map gives readers a way to interpret a major change in the structure of employment: fewer people are needed in some activities as technology and productivity change, while work grows elsewhere. The source’s historical examples show that a falling share of workers in farming does not, by itself, mean food production has disappeared. Instead, employment has moved into other parts of the economy.
That distinction matters in current discussions about automation and employment. A machine may reduce the need for labor in one task or industry, but the wider question is whether other kinds of work expand, and for whom. The episode introduces that question rather than resolving it. Its proposed future “automation sector” is explicitly presented as the author’s thesis, not as a measured development or established forecast.
The framework also helps separate the number of jobs in an industry from the amount it produces. The source says US factory employment is about 35% below its June 1979 peak, while real manufacturing output in 2025 was about 1.9 times its 1979 level. Taken together, those figures illustrate why employment and output can move differently; they do not mean manufacturing has vanished.
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Where the Three-Part Model Came From
The episode traces the terminology to early 20th-century statistical use of “primary” and “secondary” industry in Australia and New Zealand. It credits New Zealand economist Allan G. B. Fisher with adding “tertiary” to the framework in a book written in 1934 and published in 1935. Fisher later set out the three-way division in writing.
Economist Colin Clark compared employment patterns across countries in The Conditions of Economic Progress, published in 1940. He described movement from agriculture to manufacturing and then to commerce and services as a feature of economic progress, and argued that industry’s employment share could rise and later fall. French economist Jean Fourastié developed a related argument in 1949: as machines increased productivity in industry, services could absorb workers no longer needed in other sectors.
The episode presents these ideas as an intellectual history, not a universal rule that every country follows at the same pace. It gives China’s primary-sector employment share as falling from 83.5% in 1952 to 22.2% in 2024, and Japan’s census figure as declining from 53.8% in 1920 to 3.2% in 2020. The national periods and statistical methods differ, so the numbers provide country-specific illustrations rather than directly comparable measurements.
“The map is less than a century old.”
— Thorsten Meyer, author of the Work After Work series
Limits of the Sector Statistics
The episode’s figures draw on different sources, definitions and time spans. The historical US estimates cited from Lebergott count the labor force aged 10 and older, while the 2025 figure is an ILO modelled estimate. The source does not provide enough methodological detail in the material supplied to establish that these figures are fully comparable.
Sector boundaries also vary: mining may be classed as primary or secondary work, and jobs at the boundary of manufacturing and services can be assigned differently. These choices affect sector totals. The episode’s forecast that automation could perform up to 90% of work without a human hand is presented as Meyer’s thesis; the supplied material does not establish a timeframe, measurement method or independent evidence for that figure.
It is also not clear from the supplied material how the planned 60 episodes will define or measure “work that stays human,” or what evidence will be used to test Fourastié’s argument about services absorbing workers displaced by technology.
The Series Turns to Automation
Work After Work is described as a daily series planned to run for 60 episodes. Its opening installment sets out the sector model as a starting point for later episodes on how work has moved and how machines affect employment.
Meyer says episode 48 will put his automation-sector thesis “on trial.” The supplied source does not give a publication date for that episode or specify how the thesis will be evaluated. Until further installments provide those details, the automation claim remains a stated hypothesis rather than a confirmed economic development.
Key Questions
What are the three sectors in the model?
The primary sector draws on natural resources, the secondary sector makes or builds things, and the tertiary sector provides services. Some jobs, including mining and technical roles in manufacturing, may be classified differently across statistical systems.
What is the news development?
ThorstenMeyerAI.com published the first episode of Work After Work on November 2, 2026. The publisher describes it as the start of a daily, 60-part series about economic change, employment and automation.
Have services employed more people worldwide than farming since 2001?
The episode says that, according to ILO modelled estimates, services have employed more people worldwide than farming from 2001 onward. The source does not provide further methodological detail in the supplied material.
Is automation already a separate sector?
The episode does not establish that. Meyer proposes that automation could become a sector of its own and labels the idea his thesis, not a fact. The source says a later episode will examine the claim.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
