State and Private Sector Employees

Abstract

In many countries, the function of the public employee has changed as a result of the development of the welfare state after World War II. This implies that many public employees are working in the social welfare sector. Elder care, social work, and education are among the core working areas for many public employees. In connection with this development, women are increasingly employed in the public sector. However, in the last 30 years financial constraints have increased the pressure on the public sector, and therefore new types of organizational principles have been implemented in order to increase productivity and efficiency in the public sector. Employees in the private sector work in a wide variety of jobs, which suggests huge differences in their economic situation and social status. Types of jobs in the private sector are very dependent on the economic development of an area or country. Historically, private sector employees performed very different types of work, depending on how societies developed from agricultural to industrial and then postindustrial societies. In many countries now, there is increasing job insecurity because employers demand more flexibility from their workers. This has resulted in an increasing number of private sector employees working in uncertain employment situations, a condition described as “precarity.”