Tertiary sector employment in Latin America: Between modernity and survival

In the 1990s, around 90% of all new jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean arose in the tertiary sector. This article reviews the main theories about the expansion of this kind of employment, compares the recent evolution of the Latin American tertiary sector with global trends, and analyses the characteristics of the employment offered in the various branches making up the sector, as well as its underlying dynamics. The growth of employment in the Latin American tertiary sector is based on simultaneous processes of labour inclusion and exclusion. The firstnamed process reflects the growing role of some tertiary sector activities in systemic competitiveness and social reproduction, and is expressed in the generation of jobs of comparatively high productivity and quality. The second, however, is due to the pressures of the labour supply and gives rise to jobs that are usually of low productivity and quality.