[TheOtherHobbes]

Manufacturing has been dwindling for decades as a result of deliberate policy choices to offshore. So it's not as if this is a new thing.

Without factory work, non-professional men have been shunted into precarious low-quality driving and general logistics - Uber, Deliveroo, other parcel couriers, warehouse logistics.

Most of those don't require physical strength, so the premise that Diploma Man wants a job with heavy lifting to feel manly is bizarre.

[anovikov]

Manufacturing is not dwindling; manufacturing employment has been, but it was that way everywhere in the world. It's productivity. There's nothing that could be done about it.