The writer, an FT contributing editor, is chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts
A global arms race to reindustrialise is under way, reversing long-established trends in many advanced economies. The forces driving this race — decarbonisation, deglobalisation, remilitarisation — are likely to have lasting implications for the global macroeconomy and may even help it break free from secular stagnation.
Manufacturing has been in secular decline in many advanced economies. At its peak, manufacturing accounted for almost half of output and employment in the UK. Today it stands at less than 10 per cent. Manufacturing in the US peaked in the 1950s at about 28 per cent share of the economy, but has since fallen to little more than 10 per cent. Even in Europe’s manufacturing powerhouse, Germany, the manufacturing share of the economy fell from 25 per cent to 19 per cent between 1991 and 2022.