What do you call the professions that produce an end product and a material for the end product?
Is there a separate technical term for professions that produce an end product and professions that produce a raw material?
For example (let's simplify things):
- A miner produces copper. Copper cannot be used just like that - it needs to be processed, first.
- A guy who makes cables uses the copper from the miner to make a copper cable. The cable is now an end product that you can use right away.
Is there a technical term for the type of profession the miner and the cable guy have that illustrates one makes raw material and the other a finished product?
They're known as [the] extractive and manufacturing industries.
From the BusinessDictionary
extractive industry: Any processes that involve the extraction of raw materials from the earth to be used by consumers. The extractive industry consists of any operations that remove metals, mineral and aggregates from the earth. Examples of extractive processes include oil and gas extraction, mining, dredging and quarrying.
And from Nasa.gov:
manufacturing industry: The branch of manufacture and trade based on the fabrication, processing, or preparation of products from raw materials and commodities. This includes all foods, chemicals, textiles, machines, and equipment; all refined metals and minerals derived from extracted ores; and all lumber, wood, and pulp products. [slightly reformatted]
The best I've been able to do is find that your two people mining the copper and manufacturing the copper pipe work in the primary and secondary industries of the economy.
Primary: involves the retrieval and production of raw materials, such as corn, coal, wood and iron. (A coal miner, farmer or fisherman would be workers in the primary sector.)
Secondary: involves the transformation of raw or intermediate materials into goods e.g. manufacturing steel into cars, or textiles into clothing. (A builder and a dressmaker would be workers in the secondary sector.)
Wikipedia article
I've had a little luck finding names for people who work in the primary sector:
Primary producer A person or organization producing basic agricultural commodities, such as a farmer or cattle producer.
Wiktionary
A primary producer is an individual, partnership, trust or company operating a primary production business if they undertake:
plant or animal cultivation
fishing or pearling
tree farming or felling
Australian Taxation Office
The problem is these terms are no good. I've only found very few of these, and none for secondary producer. Also, primary producer usually refers to biological organisms, such as photosynthesising plants etc.
So the best I can come up with is:
someone working in the primary sector of the economy
someone working in the secondary sector of the economy
Also the producer/manufacturer distinction doesn't work, because you can produce copper pipes. Hopefully someone can find a term for "gatherers of raw materials" and another for "those who turn raw materials into goods/products."