Manufacturing Employment Around The World

We frequently hear the talking heads on TV lamenting the decline of manufacturing in the United States. In reality, the US produces more manufacturing output than any other country and more than China and Japan combined, but this never gets mentioned. We produce this output with fewer workers, because Americans are more productive than workers in other countries. So although the number of people employed in the manufacturing sector has declined, the output (measured in real dollars) of our manufacturing sector has never been higher. And, the manufacturing output has remained relatively constant as a percentage of US GDP. The graph below from Economix shows that the number of people employed in the manufacturing sector has declined in virtually every major developed nation. So the issue is not unique to the US.