How does the industry break down?

Ben Chouchaoui, ME, BSc, MASc, PhD

Operations Manager

Windsor Industrial Development Laboratory

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The economy comprises many different types of industries that produce goods or provide services. The essence of the industry encompasses 1. Business, 2. Cottage Industry, 3. Heavy industry, 4. Light industry, and 5. Manufacturing.

Most industries help in the wellbeing of humans and create jobs and activities. Still, in some cases, industries can be harmful, such as those where harmful waste chemicals are dumped in bodies of water, or even those where pesticides and similar inadvertently leak into water sources.

Businesses that share a focus on services or produce a similar product engage in a specific industry. Every business belongs to at least one of the different types of industries. For example, while a pilot and a bus driver may work for different businesses, they are both likely in the transportation industry.

There are several types of sectors in the industry. A sector refers to different types of economic activity and can include multiple industries. The major economic sectors divide into four inter-related types:

Primary: This category includes all businesses that exploit and perform the initial processing of raw materials. Some examples of common business activities in this sector include mining of precious metals, forestry, and oil and gas exploration.

Secondary: This refers to manufacturing activity. Primary manufacturers process raw materials into another form, for example, converting wood material into pulp and paper. Secondary manufacturers produce goods to sell directly to consumers or to other manufacturers that use them as components in the production of other goods.

Tertiary: Often considered a service sector, businesses in the tertiary category provide services to consumers rather than directly harvesting or producing goods themselves. This sector includes a wide range of economic activities, such as banking services, food services, and hospitality.

Quaternary: This sector refers to knowledge or information-based economic activity, including education, consultation, media, and entertainment services.

The most important industries, referred to as major industries, account for 12. It is important to consider interests and aptitudes when deciding which industry might be suitable for a person, company, society. Jobs usually operate within a specific industry, but there can be a degree of overlap between them. The following is a list of 12 major industries are mostly reported as the most impactful and job creators: 1. Transportation, 2. Pharmaceutical, 3. Telecommunications, 4. Manufacturing, 5. Mining, 6. Hospitality, 7. Media and news, 8. Agriculture, 9. Computer and technology, 10. Education, 11. Finance and economics, 12. Health care.

The Manufacturing, most important sector the economy, includes the aerospace industry, the automotive industry, the chemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the construction industry, the defense industry and arms industry, the electric power industry, the electronics industry, the computer industry, the semiconductor industry, the energy industry, the food and drink industry, the industrial robot industry, the low technology industry, the meat and meat packing industry, the mining industry, the oil and gas, the petroleum industry, the oil shale, the pulp and paper industry, the steel industry, the shipbuilding industry, the textile industry, the water industry.