The private service sector in the United States now accounts for over 71% of all jobs given the growth in entertainment, tourism, healthcare and educational services. The exponential growth of the internet and people buying more experiences (like travelling or eating out) rather than buying goods means the goods-producing industries (like construction, manufacturing and mining) have seen a decline in jobs and now contribute less than 14% of all jobs. Government jobs have contributed around 15% consistently to the overall labour market over the past 50 years.
The biggest growth in jobs since 2007 in the United States has been in the Educational sector while most jobs have been lost in Manufacturing.
Total Nonfarm jobs are up 8% since 2007
Construction jobs are down 7% since 2007
Educational services jobs are up 26.9% since 2007
Health Care jobs are up 25% since 2007
Manufacturing jobs are down 9.7% since 2007
Retail jobs are up 3.2% since 2007
Financial services jobs are up 1.9% since 2007
What about bringing back manufacturing to the U.S.?
The fact is that U.S. manufacturing has been growing but it isn’t generating too many new jobs. It isn’t surprising given increased productivity, increased automation and shift towards higher value goods (like aircrafts or high-end electronics).
Here are some graphs,
Indexed Number of manufacturing jobs vs Indexed manufacturing output (Both indexed to January 2012 = 100)
Year on Year Percentage Change: Number of manufacturing jobs vs manufacturing output
Growing Manufacturing output
