President Trump says his new tariff regime will bring factories “roaring back” to the U.S., and manufacturing boosters are among those most enthusiastic about his second-term agenda. But if the goal is to future-proof a national economy that can thrive in the rest of the 21st century, revitalizi ng manufacturing won’t be enough. We all know how we got here: A combination of increased overseas production, policy shifts and technological change led to a decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. My hometown in upstate New York was devastated in 1998 when the local Champion plant shut down the rest of their manufacturing and moved to Mexico. But even overseas, the manufacturing industry isn’t what it used to be. Worldwide, manufacturing now represents a shrinking percentage of gross domestic products, even in countries like China and India that have long been seen as the global future of the industry.  Aging populations, post-pandemic shifts, wealthier consumers favoring experiences over goods, and automation reducing labor needs on plant floors have all weakened manufacturing’s dominance as the potential savior to America’s jobs crisis. If bringing back manufacturing isn’t the long-term answer many think it is, where should the country turn instead? What if the U.S. turned its attention to the jobs and industries that are increasingly driving the global economy?  The services industry, particularly services for individuals and businesses that employ emerging technology, is only expanding. Because businesses are increasingly run on dozens of software-as-a-service platforms, a growing number of good jobs are in tech-enabled services — everything from finance, sales and product design to human resources, procurement and supply chain management. The rise of AI is likely to accelerate this growth. According to Deloitte’s latest tech forecast, worldwide spending on artificial intelligence alone, which is increasingly powering the tech services industry, is projected to grow by a compound annual growth rate approaching 30 percent for the next several years. Services jobs have the potential to do what manufacturing did throughout the 20th century: provide good-paying employment in fast-growing industries to individuals who have not earned a college degree, or to the millions of recent college grads who are currently unemployed or underemployed. Tech-enabled services respond to the needs of an increasingly global and digital world of work — one that has left companies scrambling to find talent.  But as promising as the industry is, tech-enabled services face a challenge that’s all too familiar for communities like my hometown — namely, that American companies have been sending these jobs overseas for decades because they’re not able to find low-cost, highly skilled American talent.  By one estimate, 300,000 jobs are offshored annually in sectors such as application development, cloud computing, cybersecurity and data management. Without a more intentional focus on strengthening tech-enabled services stateside, our nation risks losing these jobs the same way we lost manufacturing. The good news is that a simple and effective solution exists for companies resorting to offshoring due to struggles finding homegrown tech talent. New apprenticeship programs are already emerging to provide technology and functional skills training to high-potential young Americans who may lack the typical background and experience that would ease their entry into traditional tech services roles. These programs, which combine paid employment with pathways to high-paying jobs, can help solidify a sector that has the potential to serve as the foundation of tomorrow’s labor market while also ensuring that more workers have the skills to navigate the economy of the future. On the surface, it’s perhaps difficult to imagine tech-enabled services as a replacement for manufacturing. The nation’s factories produce things — cars and trucks, food and beverages, electronic devices, medicine — that Americans (and American voters) can see and touch.  Tech-enabled service jobs are found nearly everywhere, but they are more varied, less tangible and provide an enormously diverse range of services. Fittingly for an increasingly complex economy, keeping America in the lead for the remaining years of the 21st century will require telling a different, more nuanced story.  It’s understandable that businesses and government leaders alike want the story of American manufacturing to have a happy ending. But as the pace of technological change continues to accelerate, it’s more important than ever that American workers master versatile and transferable skills that will prepare them for the tech-enabled services jobs of today and tomorrow.  Policymakers interested in preparing the workforce of the future should consider tech-enabled services as manufacturing’s 21st-century replacement — and invest accordingly. Matt Stewart is CEO of RiseNow. ...read more read less