O LevelGeographyCambridge (CIE)Exam QuestionsChanging EconomiesChanging Employment Structures

Syllabus Edition

First teaching 2025

First exams 2027

Changing Employment Structures (Cambridge (CIE) O Level Geography): Exam Questions

Exam code: 2217

1 hour14 questions
Easy
Medium
Hard
13 marks

Study Figs. 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4, which are photographs showing different employment sectors.

Man operating machinery with wires and bottles in an industrial setting, surrounded by tools, papers, and a blue bucket.

Fig. 5.2

A tractor pulling a trailer filled with hay drives along a rural road, with two people seated on the tractor and fields in the background.

Fig. 5.3

Man in white shirt and red tie stands beside a beige taxi with a red roof, parked on a desert road under a clear sky. Desert and trees in background.

Fig. 5.4

Identify the employment sectors shown in each of Figs. 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4.

How did you do?

21 mark

Identify what is meant by an economic sector.

  • The chain of production in manufacturing

  • An economic shift in employment

  • A classification of types of employment

  • A classification of employment structures

Choose your answer

3a1 mark

Study Fig. 6.1 shows the employment structures of Germany (an HIC) and Egypt (an LIC) in 1960, 1985, and 2010.

Bar charts compare working population sectors in Germany and Egypt for 1960, 1985, and 2010, with key for primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors.

What percentage of the working population was employed in the primary sector in Egypt in 1960?

How did you do?

3b2 marks

Identify one similarity and one difference between the employment structures of Germany and Egypt in 2010.

Similarity .......................

Difference .........................

How did you do?

3c3 marks

Suggest reasons for the decline of employment in secondary industry in Germany since 1985.

How did you do?

42 marks

Identify one physical and one economic factor that affects an industry's location?

How did you do?

15 marks

Explain why the employment structure of a country is a good indicator of its level of development.

How did you do?

24 marks

Explain why employment in the primary sector is high in many low-income countries (LICs).

How did you do?

35 marks

Suggest reasons for the decline of secondary industry in many high-income countries (HICs).

How did you do?

44 marks

Study Fig. 1, the Clark-Fisher model.

Line graph showing employment trends across sectors: primary decreases, secondary peaks in industrial, tertiary rises, quaternary is minimal.

Using Fig. 1, describe how employment structure changes as countries develop.

How did you do?

55 marks

Suggest reasons why MICs often experience rapid growth in secondary sector employment.

How did you do?

17 marks

Evaluate the usefulness of employment structure data in showing a country’s level of development.

How did you do?

27 marks

Assess the impacts of deindustrialisation on people and places in HICs.

How did you do?

37 marks

Evaluate the extent to which globalisation is responsible for changing employment structures in MICs?

How did you do?

47 marks

Evaluate the social and economic impacts of growth in the tertiary and quaternary sectors in HICs.

How did you do?

57 marks

Assess the extent to which mechanisation changes employment structures in LICs and MICs.

How did you do?