>people seem worried about the number of factory workers in a way in which they do not worry about number of architects.

That's because millions of people were factory workers living a cozy life back until a few decades ago and now they (and their kids and communities) are struggling to make ends meet.

Millions of people weren't architects.

Not much "glamorizing of factory jobs" is needed to explain their complains. Plain desperation will do.

Is that really true though? Is the unemployment rate higher now than it was in some golden age in cultural memory?

http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/united-states-unemplo...

You can have a job making 55k and a job making 20k, you're employed but your material condition declined

Is that actually what has happened? Evidence please?

Because there's not enough real world evidence on the matter that one can empirically observe, and we need stats and research?

manufacturing jobs [which] comprise just 10% of all employment in America (in percentage terms, there has been a virtually uninterrupted decline since 1970's 26%) (The economist)

Or: http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/29/news/economy/us-manufacturin...

And even those statistics can be and are manipulated in lots of ways from pundits to make a point that "it has never been better" and that everybody migrated happily to services jobs etc. That people used to be able to buy a house and send kids to college (and put some money aside) in the 50-60s with a manufacturing job, and they don't now is rarely mentioned. Or that tons of tricks are used to reduce the unemployment numbers.

Why, again, are manufacturing jobs the one type of job we're always supposed to be maximize, even relative to the pool of all other jobs? Is there more or less total employment, and does that matter less than manufacturing employment alone?

re: housing and college costs, I don't think that has much to do with manufacturing jobs in particular.

>Why, again, are manufacturing jobs the one type of job we're always supposed to be maximize, even relative to the pool of all other jobs?

Because the other major alternatives are

(a) service jobs that are a zero sum game of people inside the same country of circle-servicing one another,

(b) jobs like scientist, software developer, etc, that by their nature require few people so wont be increasing anytime soon either (and eliminate other jobs)

(c) UBI -- good luck with that.

I am not thoroughly convinced that non-physical labor jobs are zero sum, necessarily shrinking and/or reduce other employment. Why should I believe that? Can you cite any evidence to this effect?

Furthermore, if white collar jobs are "shrinking" means they should be irrelevant, manufacturing jobs are shrinking means they should be lamented?

Lastly, what if increasing automation means that manufacturing jobs will inevitably go away regardless of how anyone feels about it or complains about it? What do you propose to stop that? Manufacturing output of the US has consistently increased despite any variance in the amount of people it employs or the state of the rest of the economy.

>Lastly, what if increasing automation means that manufacturing jobs will inevitably go away regardless of how anyone feels about it or complains about it? What do you propose to stop that?

I propose a society where mankind DECIDES about what kind of jobs it wants to have (or none if they please so), and they are not dictated to it about the mere availability of some technology.

It's because American's romanticize manufacturing for some reason. They love the idea of someone doing back-breaking labor on a factory floor line, but hate the idea of someone working retail in air conditioning.

Those romanticized factory jobs were by and large protected by unions and offered better pay and pensions than any other blue collar occupation.

Which is ironic, considering the party claiming to want to bring back manufacturing jobs is also the party that busted the unions.