Every country has an economically active population (PEA) and an economically inactive population (PEI). The PEA corresponds to people who work and have an employment relationship or who are looking for work. The PEI refers to people who are part of the informal market, those unemployed for more than a year, retirees, housewives and young people (children and teenagers of unsuitable ages for work).
In relation to the economically active population, there is a division according to sectors of activity, that is, each worker works in a certain sector of the economy. Thus, this population is distributed across three sectors of economic activity, they are: primary sector, secondary sector and tertiary sector.
O primary sector covers all productive activities involved with agriculture, livestock and extractivism (mineral, animal and vegetable), which are related to the exploitation of natural resources and the production of raw materials that will be absorbed by another sector of the economy (secondary).
Agriculture is part of the primary sector.
O secondary sector integrates activities focused on industry, production of consumer goods, civil construction and energy generation. Industry, for example, is responsible for transforming natural resources and raw materials (from the primary sector) into consumer goods and industrialized products that will be sold in another sector of the economy (tertiary).
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Power generation is an activity that is part of the secondary sector.
O tertiary sector represents activities linked to the provision of services and commerce. Among them we can mention: commerce (purchase and sale of different types of goods) and provision of services (public services, service provision companies, distribution of goods, finance companies, independent professionals, such as lawyers, teachers, engineers, among others). This sector of activity is the one that has grown the most in recent years, especially in developed countries, where the rural population is increasingly small. Given this fact, the economically active population is concentrated in the secondary and tertiary sector.
The work of a mechanic is part of the tertiary sector as it involves the provision of services.
By Eduardo de Freitas
Graduated in Geography