What Is Industry in Career Context?

[denjay]

I feel stupid for asking this question mainly because I've used the term on many occasions and just realized that I'm not quite sure what it means.

Often people choose to go into industry or do research. Obviously there's more choices and some intermixing with the two but that's beside the point.

What is this "industry" people refer to in this context?

 

[InvalidID]

Wikipedia's definition:

Industry is the production of an economic good or service within an economy.

When people say they want to go into industry, it means that they want to work for a company that produces an economic good or service. Or in other words, they just mean that they want a job/career as opposed to academic research which doesn't have economic value.

 

[f95toli]

Is usually refers to any type of job outside of academia.
Or simply put, any type of job where you are employed by a company and where the primary goal of your work is to generate profit for that company.

The opposite is where you are employed by e.g. a university, you get most of your funding from funding agencies (usually the government) and your primary goal is to publish your research.