Private services account for 69% of GDP, and 128.2 million jobs in June. In the Bureau of Economic Analysis industry accounts, private service industries “consist of utilities; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing; professional and business services; educational services, health care, and social assistance; arts, entertainment, recreational, accommodation, and food services; and other services (except public administration).”
Goods-producing industries, by contrast, “consist of agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; mining; construction; and manufacturing.” All of these goods-producing industries combined accounted for only 20.7 million jobs this June. That was fewer goods-producing jobs than in July 2000 (24.7 million) or August 1979 (25 million) or even May 1969 (22.9 million). In other words, all long-term U.S. job growth has been in service occupations, not in manufacturing, mining, construction, and agriculture.
The United States is predominantly a service economy. Many world-famous U.S. enterprises provide services all over the world – including entertainment, transportation, legal services, chain restaurants, advertising, accounting, medical tourism and college degrees. In fact, rising U.S. service exports accounted for a third of total exports from January through May, and the U.S. surplus in services shrunk the total deficit by 31%.
Yet when President Trump and his trade war generals talk excitedly about bilateral trade deficits, they invariably talk only about goods — never services. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, for example, published “Free Trade Is a Two-Way Street” in The Wall Street Journal, writing only about “trade in goods” – as though a third of U.S. exports, most U.S. jobs and 69% of U.S. GDP is not worth mentioning.