Economic structure Table 1 gives a comparison of the structure of the economy by industry then and now. The two most striking changes are the decline in the share of output provided by manufacturing, and the rise in financial and business services. This trend has occurred in all developed countries.
Those industries in which labor costs are a significant part of overall costs have been under greater competition from foreign producers with lower labor costs, adjusted for productivity. This process is not new. For generations human ingenuity has been creating industries and jobs that never before existed, from vehicle assembling to computer software engineering.