Chapter4. Service Industry

1. The service industry of the city had 24,616 business establishments and 230,249 persons engaged as of June 1, 2004. In terms of the number of persons engaged, the service industry in the total of all industries accounts for 16.8%, following the wholesale and retail industries (27.0%). Meanwhile, regarding the gross product of the city, the percentage of the service industry in all the industries has been increasing year by year since 1996, and reached 30% in 2000. Since 2001, the situation has somewhat stabilized at about the same level on a year-on-year basis. However, the service industry still accounts for a large proportion of the gross product of the city, because there have been no signs of increases in the wholesale, retail and manufacturing industries.
   
   
2. The composition of the service industry in the city by type of business shows that, in the number of business establishments, "life-related" services account for the largest proportion (47.4%). However, the number of establishments and the number of persons engaged in "life-related" services decreased from 2001 to 2004.
   
   
3. In the "company-related" services, the number of establishments slightly decreased, while the number of persons engaged slightly increased. Among the "company-related" services, "other services for business" have increased both in the number of establishments and the number of persons engaged. One of the reasons for this is that temp agencies, which are classified in this category, have greatly increased both in the number of establishments and the number of persons engaged.
   
   
4. Information services in the city have decreased since 2002 in the number of establishments, the number of persons engaged and annual sales. Annual sales in 2005 were only about 70% of the peak in 2002.
   
   
5. Restaurants in the city numbered 13,098 business establishments and 82,188 persons engaged in 2004. Both of the indexes have been decreasing since 2001.
   
   
6. The number of inns and hotels in the city has been decreasing recently, but the annual number of guests in real terms has been increasing. In FY 2006, the annual number of guests in total and the annual occupancy rate decreased from the previous year when Expo 2005 Aichi, Japan was hosted, but remained higher than those in preceding years.