The line graph illustrates data about the indexes of jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, retail, and healthcare in the United States from 1960 to 2020.
Overall, the number of positions of employment in manufacturing and agriculture increased, those for retail and healthcare jobs declined. Initially, the index of healthcare employment was lower, but it peaked at its highest point than others by 2020.
In 1960, the workforces of healthcare and agriculture were at about 2 million and just above 5 million, respectively. Over the next 40 years, these figures rose similarly by almost 9 million. Then, their indexes increased continuously to just above 15 million by 2020.
At the start of the period, the numbers of employment in manufacturing was 15 million, and that of the retail jobs were at about 4 million. While manufacturing increased significantly by 5 million jobs, retail jobs experienced a slight decline to approximately 3 million by 2020. Nevertheless, in the following 20 years, manufacturing dropped about 3 million jobs, retail remained unchanged. Both economic sectors experienced a downward trend by losing about 5 million and almost 1 million jobs at the end of the period, respectively.
