Gone To China

Everyone knows that China has become the manufacturing center of the world, destroying millions of goods-producing jobs in the rest of the world. But how many jobs are we talking about? For the US, at least, lots.

• I have fallen and I can't get up: within just a couple of years starting in 2001, the US lost 3 million manufacturing jobs. Despite the economic recovery that followed, manufacturing is still shedding jobs.
  

US Manufacturing Jobs

• Service with a smile: against this fearful depression in domestic manufacturing, 6.6 million service jobs were created after 2001.

US Private Service Jobs

• IV drips and lattes: Looking closer at those 6.6 million new service jobs, we see that most of them were created in Health Services, Professional and Business (legal, accounting, temps, etc.), Leisure & Hospitality (includes food establishments). Interestingly, despite popular perceptions of minions of MartMart greeters, Retail created only 320.000 jobs. Information lost -450.000 jobs.

New Service Jobs by Category

I proclaim as self-evident that a highly developed economy that depends on healthcare, lawyers and lattes for 80% of new job creation - while shedding millions of jobs in manufacturing - is in the deepest possible trouble.

All data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics