The shrinking manufacturing share could indicate a trend similar to deindustrialisation in other parts of the world. Deindustrialisation (defined as the decline of employment in manufacturing as a share of total employment) is a trend that can be observed everywhere in the world, not only in the US and Europe, but also in East Asia and Latin America, while the share of services increases. For Africa this is a worrying trend because it could ‘miss out on the chance to grow rich by shifting workers from farms to higher-paying factory jobs’. In Africa manufacturing provides just over 6% of all jobs – a percentage that has remained unchanged for three decades. There are exceptions to this trend. Ethiopia’s manufacturing has grown by an average of over 10% a year in 2006-2014, albeit from a very low base. In Tanzania, manufacturing output has grown 7.5% annually from 1997 to 2012.
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