I always found the idea of a post-industrial economy rather perplexing as it relies on the idea that we can design and manage the manufacturing of the rest of the world, but the skills required to do that are dependent on having manufacturing experience, which will die out in a generation without an industrial base in which to get the required skills.
Like the US, the UK still manufactures loads of stuff - it's just there aren't many people employed doing it and it's a much smaller percentage of the economy than it used to be.
e.g. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/22/manufacturing_figure...
The program I watched was also interesting as it followed HSBC who had brought call centre jobs back from India to the UK - what it failed to mention is that the higher paying STEM based jobs are moving (rapidly) in the opposite direction!
FinServ is a great target for offshoring, even better than software IMO. The tasks are more rote/routine and well defined which makes it much easier to send it to a cheap team in India. The big concern is the competitive advantage of the information but if you just work as a clearinghouse then it's not as big of a deal since the information is not proprietary.
A friend of mine works at a financial research offshoring company and they were just acquired by Moody's.
Have to say that's the evidence I find in much of the developed West. I watched a program in the UK last night where they were flouting the Government encouraged idea that over 100K new STEM graduates were needed a year - many of my friends leaving University with STEM degrees or thinking of enrolling on such degrees haven't bothered because job creation at that scale doesn't exist.
With outsourcing and offshoring by the bucketload it's refreshing for this Ron Hira guy to point out the reality for many.
Added link to summary of TV program if anyone is interested: http://www.itv.com/news/2014-01-16/tonight-is-britain-back-i...