Thursday, March 15, 2012

Where Did The Money Go?

The Atlantic:

Across the 20th century, the labor force has shifted from farmers and foresters to manufacturers and then to professional and service workers. In 1900, we spent much of our manpower growing food and feeding ourselves. By 1950, the major economic industries were manufacturing and construction. But today's labor economy revolves around services, not products. Service industries grew from 31 percent of all workers in 1900 to 78 percent in 1999, the BLS reports.
Here's a snapshot of the employment story since 1939. It's all interesting, but let's focus on the time between 1975 and today. In the time that our education/medical sector has quadrupled, and our business service sector has increased by the same four-fold rate, total manufacturing jobs have fallen. As multinational companies have made better use of global supply chains, manufacturing and other so-called tradable occupations have been in decline. But retail jobs have increased because selling cars and food and furniture is still a face-to-face business that's hard to do anywhere except at the point of sale.
So health care and education employment have shot up along with costs?  That makes plenty of sense.  The whole piece is interesting.  All I can say about the chart above is that I spend much more on reading and alcoholic beverages and much less on apparel.

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