Interesting that you say that, my understand of the data is that manufacturing output has never been higher - ignoring lingering Covid shocks - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMANSICS
But because productivity is higher https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M0100CUSM070NNBR - which doesn’t mean the workers are working harder: a man with a shovel can work as hard as he likes, but he’s never going to compete with the business owner who invested in productivity and gave his worker an excavator.
Therefore employment in the sector is down due to increased productivity, not decreased output.
But increased productivity is a radically different thing from decreased output. A claim that manufacturing should employ more, in the face of increased productivity, That’s a claim that manufacturing should replace other endeavours in the economy which, is a complex claim at the very least.
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