Meaning Of Occupation
Today, people engage in various activities to earn a living and to satisfy their numerous wants.
Occupation can be defined as any economic or productive activities which people engage in to create and produce goods and services in order to make a living.
In order to satisfy human numerous wants, people engage in one occupation or another, at least to meet up with the three basic needs of man which are; food, shelter, and clothing in addition to other needs to make life more comfortable.
These are various kinds of occupation that a person can do to earn a decent living. Some occupations involve extracting resources from the soil and water e.g. farming, fishing, mining or changing the form of raw material to finish goods or semi-finished goods e.g. manufacturing, extraction and construction while other provides service like police, doctors, teaching, etc.
Classification of Occupation
Businesses are classified according to the nature of the work involved. Therefore, occupation can be classified into three main groups:
- Industry
- Commercial
- Services
1. Industrial Occupation: This involves those who engage in the physical production of goods or changing of raw materials into finished or semi-finished goods or products. They also include the assembling and putting of component parts together to make it whole.
Examples of industrial occupation are extraction, manufacturing and construction. Also examples of industrial workers include: farmers, fishermen, welders, plumber, miners, etc.
2. Commercial Occupation: This refers to all the people involved in the distribution and exchange of goods produced by the industrial sector. Examples of commercial workers are: bankers, transporters, insurers, traders, etc.
3. Service Occupation: These are occupations that render services to people. Services involve doing something for the consumers which could be personal or indirect services. The consumers pay for the services directly or indirectly. Examples of such workers include: housemaid, civil servant, barbers, police force, etc.
The diagram below explains more on the classification of occupation
Factors That Determine the Types of Occupation
- Climatic and Weather Difference: The climatic and weather condition of a particular place determines the nature of occupation available in such area .e.g. Farmer will be many in a place where there is farm land.
- Education and skill: These also affect and determine the type of occupation, as learned people will be placed in a skillful or expert job area.
- Natural Resources: The availability of resources does determine the choice of occupation that people will engage in. For instance, miners will be many an area where there are mineral resources.
- Government Policies: This also determines the type of occupation as the government places age limit on those seeking for employment.
- Salary and Wages: Here, the remuneration involved and condition of service also affect and determine the kind of occupation people involve in.
Tests and Exercises
- Occupation can be classified into the following except …… (a) Trade (b) Services (c) Commercial (d) Industry.
- ……….. is one of the factors that determine the types of occupation. (a)Services (b) Government Policies (c) Government account (d) Trade.
- ……… occupation engages in the physical production of goods or changing of raw materials into finished or semi-finished goods. (a) Service (b) industrial (c) commercial (d) constructive.
- The economic activity that people engage themselves in to earn a living is ……. (a)Specialisation (b) privatization (c) occupation (d) indigenization.
- The following are the factor that determines occupation except …… (a) Climatic and Weather Difference (b) Salary and Wages (c) Natural Resources (d) Government Account.
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