It's true in some very important ways. Manufacturing employment is something like 15% of what it was fifty years ago. We only do manufacturing for things that require a lot of technology and a sophisticated skill set.

But not everyone in society is cut out to manufacture integrated circuits. It used to be that a person on the left half of the IQ bell curve could go out and get a job making brooms, or plumbing fixtures, or toys, or any number of things that are only manufactured in China now.