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20 In the last 12 years total employment in the United States grew faster than at any time in the peacetime history of any countryfrom 82 to 110 million between 1973 and 1985that is, by a full one third. The entire growth, however, was in manufacturing, and especially in noblue-collar jobs This trend is the same in all developed countries, and is, indeed, even more pronounced in Japan. It is therefore highly probable that in 25 years developed countries such as the United States and Japan will employ no larger a proportion of the labor force I n manufacturing than developed countries now employ in farmingat most, 10 percent. Today the United States employs around 18 million people in blue-collar jobs in manufacturing industries. By 2010, the number is likely to be no more than 12 million. In some major industries the drop will be even sharper. It is quite unrealistic, for instance, to expect that the American automobile industry will employ more than one third of its present blue-collar force 25 years hence, even though production might be 50 percent higher. If a company, an industry or a country does not in the next quarter century sharply increase manufacturing production and at the same time sharply reduce the blue-collar work force, it cannot hope to remain competitiveor even to remain developed. The attempt to preserve such bluecollar jobs is actually a prescription for unemployment | 
