Manufacturing jobs don't matter, or do they? IMF may be missing a point

For a country like India, labour productivity would improve many times over if workers from underemployment-plagued agriculture moved to manufacturing

Jobs in manufacturing don’t matter! That, in substance, was what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last month, in its latest World Economic Outlook. To quote from its summary: “A shift in employment from manufacturing to services need not hinder economy-wide productivity growth and the prospects for developing economies to gain ground toward advanced-economy income levels.” The report made the headlines in India, and presumably in other countries. But India has already demonstrated the truth of the first part of that statement: We have been improving productivity despite failure to build a strong manufacturing base. Indeed, employment in manufacturing is