Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies Vol. 10-1 (2010) EMPLOYMENT IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SERVICES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMERCIAL, BUSINESS AND SOCIAL SERVICES IN SPAIN, FRANCE, ITALY, GERMANY, UK AND USA GUISAN, Maria-Carmen * Abstract The European Union (EU) present lower average rates of employment and lower average wages than the United States of America, due to the lack of enough economic policies addressed to foster employment in private and public services in all their countries and regions, with a few positive exceptions of some small countries which present a very good behaviour of those variables. Although many EU countries have now a common currency they do not have, for the moment, enough common space for economic policy debates, which is of uppermost importance to advice improvements of decisions of EU Parliament and European Commission policies and to foster employment. EU Politicians, with a few worthy exceptions, usually do not show enough interest in advising by economic researchers and in several cases they prefer to follow erratic measures, introduced by non expert groups in the public debate, which they deem may alleviate the social pressure on politicians in the short term, without little attention to the interrelations among economic variables and the full effects not only in the medium and long term but even in the short term. The main aim of this study is to contribute to foster industrial development, with their positive effects on services, and other measures which might contribute to increase the rates of employment in private and public sectors, as well as real wages, of the European Union as a whole to converge with the levels of the USA. JEL Codes: C51, H5, J2, J45, O51, O52, O57 Keywords: Employment policies, Social Services, European Union, United States 1. Introduction The main aim of this study is to present a comparison of several European Union with the United States regarding the degree of industrial development and their positive effects on real Value-Added per capita and Employment in Services. European economic policies in many countries should be addressed to reach a higher degree of convergence with the highest rates of employment and real wages of the USA. We analyze the particular case of Spain addressed to avoid wrong economic policies which could lead to diminutions of rates of employment in social services. Spain presents very low rates of employment in those services (education, health and other ones), as well as low real wages in comparison with other countries of this study. We recommend better policies addressed to increase both real wages and rates of employment in services with particular focus on social services. This study includes five sections and one Annex. * Maria-Carmen Guisan, Professor of Econometrics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), e-mail: mcarmen.guisan@usc.es , Website: http://www.usc.es/economet/guisan.htm