In addition to these material and tangible values human labour is also behind most intangible assets of society such as level of education and general knowledge. In the industrialized world a major part of both the workforce and the GDP is bound to services, in developing countries the greatest part of the workforce is employed in agriculture. Due to variations in the productivity of different sectors and different countries, the average GNP per capita varies by a factor of 12 between the countries with the highest income and those with the lowest. This has a major impact on the workload and standard of living of workers in different parts of the world. In recent years industry has been re-emphasized as the sector that produces the means to support other sectors such as services.
Industrial productivity is often several times higher than productivity in agriculture.
The world is still economically very diverse. In spite of distinct progress made by the economies of many developing countries, the differences between the least developed and the wealthiest countries of the world did not reduce but actually widened during the 1980s. There are many signs that this development will continue during the 1990s. In spite of positive socioeconomic trends in some developing countries, the future development of international economies speaks for further diversification in different parts of the world and on different areas of economic activity. Along with such development, working conditions and occupational health and safety standards are at risk of becoming polarized.