Direct, indirect, and induced employment

Investments into an industry or project can produce temporary and long-term employment. The resulting jobs are typically categorized as being one of three types. A direct job is employment created to fulfill the demand for a product or service. An indirect job is a job that exists to produce the goods and services needed by the workers with direct jobs. Indirect employment includes the things need direct on the job as well as jobs produced because of the worker's needs (e.g., uniforms). Employment created by the additional personal spending (e.g., eating at a restaurant) by both direct and indirect workers is classified as an induced job.

Projects may produce temporary and long-term jobs. Construction and installation jobs may be temporary. Operations and maintenance jobs tend to be long term.

Efficiency of job production
Investments in some projects or industries are more efficient at producing direct and indirect jobs. For example, investing US$1,000,000 in the petroleum industry produces fewer direct and indirect jobs than investing the same amount of money in renewable energy or energy efficiency.

A special economic zone produces fewer indirect jobs if it is isolated from the country's main economy, and more if it is well integrated. For example, the special economic zone in the Dominican Republic provided 166,000 formal direct jobs plus 250,000 indirect jobs in 2017.