TRANSFORMATIONS IN WORK 265
panies who merely assembled prefabricated parts, not only for major
building construction projects, but also when it came to interior work,
such as fi tting a new kitchen. Alternatively, some of them also began to
specialize in the production of supply parts.
Thus, even though the number of companies in the craft trades has
grown since the 1990s, this cannot be seen as the advent of a new golden
age for craftsmen. To the contrary, this boom in new companies is refl ec-
tive of a crisis. In periods of high unemployment (regardless of whether
structural or cyclical), craftsmen without jobs or those whose jobs are
precarious have typically started small, pseudo self-employed compa-
nies in order to keep “their heads above water.”^57 Indeed, the fact that
many craftsmen’s businesses became supply companies for industrial
production or became part of these production chains themselves bears
a remarkable resemblance to the widespread proto-industrial putting-out
system and classic cottage industries of the early nineteenth century.
The introduction of CNC machines and CAD and CAM systems in the
craft trades has had an ambiguous eff ect. On the one hand, the adaptation
of quasi-industrial production processes has reduced the autonomy of the
producers. It has also brought a separation between manual and mental
work into the craft trades. When journeymen and master craftsmen just
use CNC machines programmed “externally” or merely assemble indus-
trially prefabricated parts, their qualifi cations and expert knowledge lose
their value.^58 On the other hand, craftsmen have also become part of the
“creative industry.”^59 The growing proportion of time spent on planning,
construction, and programming, as well as bookkeeping, has also marked
a shift in daily work away from direct involvement in manual production
toward tasks that can be best assigned to the service sector.
The Service Sector
More Gaps between East and WestThe same trend, namely a shift in activity from the actual core of pro-
duction to work that can be summed up as “services” (sales, fi nancial
services, public relations, marketing, etc.), can also be detected in the
industrial sector.^60 Consequently, the service sector is actually gaining
more ground in Western societies than statistics would seem to indicate
(see table 5.3). A look at the data on the distribution of the GDP and the
percentages of employees according to economic sector reveals a simi-
lar, yet less pronounced shift in the GDR (see table 5.4). This impression
of seemingly analogous development trajectories, however, is quite mis-
leading. Even the category of “service” itself is problematic: not only is it