McKinsey report on manufacturing

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The red boxes mark places where chemists typically work. Credit: McKinsey

From the Washington Post summary of a McKinsey report on manufacturing, an uncomfortable statement:

Manufacturing contributed 20 percent of the growth in global economic output in the decade ending in 2010, the McKinsey researchers estimate, and 37 percent of global productivity growth from 1995 to 2005. Yet the sector actually subtracted 24 percent from employment in advanced nations. 

“Manufacturing makes outsized contributions to GDP. It makes outsized contributions to overall productivity growth. It drives prosperity,” said James Manyika, one of the authors of the report. “But purely on employment, it has been declining over time.” 

That said, it's sort of good news for chemists:

In other words, the manufacturing worker of the future is more likely to have a graduate degree and wear a suit or a labcoat to work than to have only a high school education and carry a lunch pail.

I hope that's true.