Deindustrialisation – The decline of the country's traditional manufacturing industry due to exhaustion of raw materials, loss of markets and competition from NEE's

Deletion of industries that were making products for the nation (deindustrialisation) had been occurring for a while in some countries. They couldn't compete with newly-emerging economies (NEE's).

To take the UK as an example, for many years the amount of manufacturing taking place has been reducing. At the same time, there has been an increase in the tertiary (services) and quaternary (knowledge-based) sectors.

The situation is not unique to the UK: there has been a global shift of manufacturing to emerging and developing countries, where wages are lower, working hours are longer, and trade unions may be banned.

The UK has entered a post-industrial era. This is when traditional industries have declined and new job opportunities in non-manufacturing industries, such as IT, have taken their place.