The graph illustrates the number of jobs in four various economic sectors in the United States from 1960 to 2020.
Overall, while healthcare and retail saw a dramatic increase, the reverse was true for manufacturing and healthcare, with the former having the least amount of jobs.
Focusing on increases first, the number of jobs in retail stood at just over 5 million in 1960, increasing dramatically to approximately 16 million after 60 years. The trend for healthcare followed a similar pattern; it had approximately 3 million available places in 1960. The figure illustrates a gradual but significant increase to 16 million in 2020.
The remaining categories, however, bucked the foregoing trend. The trend for manufacturing came out with the highest number at 15 million at the beginning of the period. However, it saw considerable growth from 15 to 20 million in 1980; it declined drastically to 13 million by the end of the period. With 6 million jobs at the start of the period, agriculture plunged to 3 million in 1980. While the figure saw a consistent change at 3 million until 2000, in the remaining 20 years it dropped to roughly 2 million.