Introduction

Abstract

During the past five decades, the service sector has grown in importance and is acknowledged to be a significant source of economic growth and job creation. Locating empirical information on specific service industry characteristics is not an easy task, even for an individual familiar with various sources of data. This book is a quick source of information on service industry statistics across many nations of the world. Its primary goal is to present the reader with analytical ratios on various service industry sectors from diverse sources. It also seeks to guide the reader in finding key sources of data. This introductory chapter serves to introduce the structure of the book.