“A job in industry is also now harder to attain. Modern #factories are high-tech, run by #engineers and #technicians. In the early 1980s #BlueCollar assemblers, machine operators and repair workers made up more than half of the #manufacturing workforce.

Today they account for less than a third. #Whitecollar professionals outnumber blue-collar factory-floor workers by a wide margin. Even once obtained, a #FactoryJob is far less likely to be unionised than in previous decades, with membership having fallen from one in four workers in the 1980s to less than one in ten today.

In order to find the modern equivalent of such jobs, we looked for #employment with the same traits. What offers decent #pay, #unionisation, requires no #degree and can soak up the male workforce?

The result: mechanics, repair technicians, security workers and the skilled trades.”

<https://archive.md/L1J7W> (paywall) / <https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/06/10/factory-work-is-overrated-here-are-the-jobs-of-the-future>