The meaning of "industry"

The Work Foundation recently published details of a survey about attitudes to the word "industry"

For instance, people over 45 years old tend to think of smokestacks and coal mines, noise and grime, those under 30 – and particularly those under 24 – tend to be future-oriented in their word-associations, summoning images of computers, success, money and technology.

The aim of the survey is more than an exercise in semantics. In more detail, the main objective of the survey is to, "test perceptions of industry at a time when it is frequently assumed that Britain has become a ‘post-industrial’ nation."

For more details and an expansion of the findings visit - When they think of the word ‘industry’ young people see ‘money and computers’ whereas older people see ‘dirt and decline’ (The Work Foundation).