what is hollowing out 
hollowing out is the deterioration of a country s manufacturing sector when producers opt for low cost facilities overseas taking away these jobs has helped to concentrate wealth among the very wealthy hollow out the middle class and increase the number of working class and lower class households understanding hollowing outover the past few decades many of the world s leading economies have experienced hollowing out as manufacturing jobs were sent to regions with lower labor costs such as china or bangladesh after peaking in 1979 at more than 19 million the number of u s manufacturing jobs shrank to fewer than 12 million by 2020 1other advanced economies have experienced a similar trend in japan for example the percentage of employment in manufacturing has plummeted since reaching nearly 28 in the 1970s by 2012 16 6 of people were said to be employed in the sector and there hasn t been much change since 23 this has had a disproportionate impact on cities and rural communities that relied heavily on nearby plants for employment 4not all economists believe that outsourcing of manufacturing and the subsequent hollowing out of jobs hurts society on net however some argue that it presents the domestic economy with an opportunity to pivot toward high skill high wage jobs such as product design and marketing they also argue that consumers benefit from the products they buy being made overseas as it leads to lower prices robots and other labor saving technologies are likely to cause a further hollowing out of middle class jobs this has been quantified into something known as moravec s paradox in the 1980s artificial intelligence ai experts discovered that robots find difficult things easy and easy things difficult hans moravec one of these ai researchers said it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one year old when it comes to perception and mobility 5put another way if you wanted to beat magnus carlsen the world chess champion you would choose a computer if you wanted to clean the chess pieces after the game you would choose a human being hollowing out dataincome inequality is becoming a growing issue in the u s and many other places in the world everywhere you look there s research illustrating that middle class disposable incomes are declining as the rich get richer from 1970 to 2018 the share of aggregate income going to middle class households in the u s fell from 62 to 43 while the share held by upper income households increased from 29 to 48 according to the pew research center this has led the american middle class population to shrink from 61 in 1971 to 51 in 2019 6while the middle class is indeed hollowing out the pew research center notes that the dynamic is complex some families dropped into the lower income bracket whereas others climbed into the upper income bracket 6the organization for economic co operation and development oecd came to a similar conclusion when looking at most of the globe according to its findings from the mid 1980s to the mid 2010s middle incomes barely grew in oecd countries and increased a third less than the average income of the richest 10 as labor markets changed and the cost of living skyrocketed 7