[PieterCasparzen]

IMHO...

[ealgeone]

can you put this into a graph/chart? would make it easier to digest.

[1rudeboy]

That's interesting. On a side note, in '79 or '80 I had a job working in the cafeteria of a local manufacturer. One payday, I noticed that my check was issued by another company. After asking, I learned that my job had been outsourced to a firm specializing in food service.

The gist of the story is that my initial job counted as "manufacturing employment," and the second did not . . . thus showing a decline in manufacturing jobs at that manufacturer.

I posted the above merely to show that "manufacturing job" can be an amorphous quantity.

[Mikey_1962]

1979 coincides exactly with the opening of China to manufacturing and outsourcing.

[Mikey_1962]

Two things at work here:

The rise of real automation making high wage high value added jobs being done by fewer and fewer people.

Low wage (relatively speaking) low value added jobs sent to third world countries.

Manufacturing jobs will be to the 21st Century what Agricultural Jobs were to the 20th. In 1900 30% of the population worked in Agriculture by 2000 less than 3% worked on farms.