The manufacturing sector is following the same trend that agriculture has been following for a much longer period: increased productivity with reduced labour input. Manufacturing productivity per worker has increased five times since 1980.

That trend isn’t going away. As this article points out, the need is not to fiddle with the economics of the manufacturing sector or international trade; that isn’t going to change the underlying technological reality. A much more effective response would be to provide a better safety net for the workers who will inevitably be displaced, and better retraining to fit them for new jobs (since technology does tend to produce new jobs even as it removes old ones; they’re just different kinds of jobs).

A lot of current thinkers are also suggesting that the increased productivity per worker, instead of going to benefit mostly the owners of the manufacturing companies, should be partly redirected into a Universal Basic Income to provide stability independent of employment. (This particular article doesn’t go into that question directly.)

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602869/manufacturing-jobs-arent-coming-back/