1. All activities that give an income in return are called economic activities.
Example: People going for work in factories, banks, schools, etc.
2. Economic activities can be classified into different sectors on the basis of the nature of work.
(i) Primary Sector
Primary Sector of Economy(ii) Secondary Sector
(iii) Tertiary Sector
3. These three sectors are highly interdependent on one another.
This can be explained with the help of an example:
The dependency of 3 sectors on each other
4. There are thousands of goods and services produced in an economy. We cannot add different types of goods in practice. So the value of these goods and services should be used rather than adding up the actual numbers. Comparison can be done among these three sectors on the basis of the value of final goods and services produced.
5. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
6. Tertiary sector has emerged as the largest sector because it helps in the development of primary and secondary sectors.
7. Several services such as hospitals, banks, insurance companies, transport, and educational institutions are the basic services required by primary and secondary sectors for their normal functioning.
8. Organized Sector
9. Unorganized Sector
10. In the unorganized sector, protection and support are required for the workers for their economic and social development. Besides getting irregular and low paid work, they also face social discrimination.
11. Public sector is the sector that is owned, controlled, and managed by the government. Activities in the government sector are guided by the motive of social welfare and not to earn the profit.
12. In the private sector, ownership of production units is in the hands of private individuals. Activities in the private sector are mainly guided by the motive to earn profit.
Example: TISCO and RIL
13. Employment is an activity from which a person earns the means of living, i.e. income in cash or in kind.
14. Unemployment refers to a situation where the persons who are able to work and are willing to work, fail to secure work.
15. Underemployment is a situation in which a worker gets work for less time than the time he can work. In other words, he remains unemployed for some months in a year or some hours every day.
16. There was a big change in the share of three sectors in G.D.P. (from 1973 to 2000), but data show that such a similar shift has not been taken place in terms of employment.
17. Government can create more employment opportunities by providing better:
18. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act-2005 ( NREGA -2005)