The extent of such change is most obvious in those countries which industrialised first, and today Britain and the United States have a smaller percentage of their workforce in manufacturing than they did in the early years of their respective industrial revolutions. Because this process of productivity gains leading to job losses in manufacturing is global, some forecasts predict that at the current rate of displacement, factory employment, which accounted for 163 million jobs in 2003, is likely to employ no more than a few million people by 2040.
