Real manufacturing output is far higher today than when NAFTA began. That giant sucking sound, is mostly productivity gains ending jobs that apparently no longer needed to exist.
What productivity gain could cause a drop from %18 to %14 in 5 years; that is disruptive. I've been an EE for 20 years, and don't recall any technologies that would cause that. The tech advancements to manufacturing are a slow progression.
Now didn't the BLS reclassify a bunch of service sector jobs as manufacturing, such as manufacturing burgers at McDonald's?
You're proposing that counting burger flipping at McDonald's (or the equivalent) explains an eight fold increase in dollar output per manufacturing worker since 1947, and a doubling since 1997?
I'm not aware of any reclassification by the BLS, such that making burgers is now considered manufacturing. The BLS very clearly still considers McDonald's employees to be service workers, not manufacturing jobs. You can see it in the monthly jobs reports. If all of those types of service workers were now considered manufacturing jobs, we'd have seen a massive boom in manufacturing job creation over time.
1) US manufacturing real output, 1985-2015:
http://i.imgur.com/QMRdpJO.png
2) Total construction spending on manufacturing:
http://i.imgur.com/pXKLGdy.png
3) Real manufacturing output per US worker, 1947-2011:
http://i.imgur.com/8SSHwiJ.jpg
Real manufacturing output is far higher today than when NAFTA began. That giant sucking sound, is mostly productivity gains ending jobs that apparently no longer needed to exist.