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There are lots of reasons manufacturing controls the economic narrative. Nostalgia is one. Another is the lobbying of automobile makers and their unions, which thrive on the notion that there is something special about the things they make.

Only about five per cent of employed Canadians work at a factory

Even StatCan is complicit. It’s relatively easy to measure tangible things, so the agency produces monthly reports on manufacturing shipments and goods exports. It currently compiles data on trade in services only quarterly, meaning there are far fewer media stories told about what is going on with that segment of the economy.

Poloz said there is no qualitative difference between an economy based on services and one in which growth is driven by fabrication. That assessment will surprise some people. Factory workers are symbols of the middle class and their disappearance is often used to explain the rise of income inequality and the lacklustre economic growth that followed the financial crisis. Manufacturing jobs have traditionally come with higher salaries, in part because shop floors lend themselves to union drives. Some research suggests manufacturing boosts overall productivity and is a precondition for a vibrant services sector.

All of that could be more myth than fact.

The International Monetary Fund this month published research that questions the love affair with factory jobs. The multi-country study found no evidence that poorer nations need a sprawling manufacturing sector to escape low-income status; services offer an equally sure path to wealth. IMF researchers also cast doubt on the supposed link between higher inequality and fewer manufacturing jobs. Instead, they found that inequality had increased within a broad array of industries, suggesting the answer to narrowing the gap between rich and poor lies in equipping workers with the skills they need to win jobs that come with bigger salaries attached.