While classical manufacturing jobs may be on the decline in the western world, there's actually a programme in Germany to counteract this (https://en.wikipedia

While classical manufacturing jobs may be on the decline in the western world, there's actually a programme in Germany to counteract this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0) whose premise is production of customisable products at scale, whereby the focus is on automation engineering instead of manual labor (that programme is very much a WIP right now; I know the article mentioned it briefly, but I feel it could be a viable way to retain/regain competitiveness in manufacturing). Siemens, VW and others made short videos on this (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPRURtORnis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPRURtORnis or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTl8w6yAjds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTl8w6yAjds)