Services and their employment functions in French “zone d'emploi"

Although three quarters of GDP in developed economies come from service activities, studies on the location of activities focusing on manufacturing activities, which leads to underestimate the strengths and weaknesses of the territories. This paper deals with the notions of competitiveness or vulnerability of the region too often seen from the only performance of manufacturing activities. It stands for a typology of service activities from the territories, through their critical location. Six categories of services are distinguished, depending their location determinants, far from usual divisions. The article links these categories with the job functions as defined by the INSEE. We measure specialization of French employment areas for each type of service. The high concentration of services in huge cities is found that while this approach delivers information on the vulnerability of certain areas depending on the presence of volatile services.