Made in China. Or in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore – the list goes on.

Discovering that your clothing was sewn in a newly industrializing Asian country no longer raises eyebrows. But now it seems that even the most advanced electronic products are produced in a developing country, and that the manufacturing job is an endangered species in the US and Europe.

This is an exaggeration, of course. Yet the kernel of truth within it is undeniable: there has been an extraordinary migration of manufacturing, most notably of electronics, out of developed countries since the 1980s. What's more alarming is that the trend shows no signs of slackening.

To a large extent the rapid globalization of manufacturing is a consequence of digital technologies reaching maturity. Technological changes have altered the nature of the competitive advantage derived from manufacturing.

To take just one prominent example, contract manufacturing as a stand-alone business has become a major global activity. Developed in Asia, it represents a total reversal of the historical business structure, under which integrated manufacturing was considered a competitive advantage for practically all product suppliers.

Furthermore, as we discuss later, even software writing has become part of the outsourced “manufacturing” sector, a development made possible by the remarkable advances made in the technology of software development.

This chapter will trace the trajectory of outsourcing through product sectors and whole countries, revealing the pattern of exporting low-skill assembly jobs to foreign shores in search of cost reductions.