It used to take a large percentage of the population working on farms to produce food. Technology and processes kept improving until the only a small percentage was needed. Today, agriculture employment accounts for roughly 1.5% of total employment. Agriculture employment is so insignificant to the general economy that the most important employment related economic release doesn't even count farm employment, the non-farm payroll report (NFP).
The US is now producing the same real value of manufactured goods as a few years ago with a lot fewer employees. Manufacturing employment is down about 33% from the peak around 1980. The same technology improvements that eliminated farm jobs appear to be hard at work on manufacturing jobs. Some day in the future, we may be getting the non-manufacturing payroll (NMP) report instead of the non-farm payroll report.
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