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  3. In the last 12 years total employment in the United States grew faster than at any time in the peacetime history of any country

In the last 12 years total employment in the United States grew faster than at any time in the peacetime history of any country

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问题     In the last 12 years total employment in the United States grew faster than at any time in the peacetime history of any country — from 82 to 110 million between 1973 and 1985 — that is, by a full one third. The entire growth, however, was in manufacturing, and especially in non-blue-collar jobs.
    This trend is the same in all developed countries, and is, indeed, even more pronounced in Japan. It is therefore highly probable that in 25 years developed countries such as the United States and Japan will employ no larger a proportion of the labor force in manufacturing than developed countries now employ in farming — at most, 10 percent. Today the United States employs around 18 million people in blue-collar jobs in manufacturing industries. By 2010, the number is likely to be no more than 12 million. In some major industries the drop will be even sharper. It is quite unrealistic, for instance, to expect that the American automobile industry will employ more than one-third of its present blue-collar force 25 years hence, even though production might be 50 percent higher.
    If a company, an industry or a country does not in the next quarter century sharply increase manufacturing production and at the same time sharply reduce the blue-collar work force, it cannot hope to remain competitive — or even to remain "developed". The attempt to preserve such blue-collar jobs is actually a prescription for unemployment.
    This is not a conclusion that American politicians, labor leaders or indeed the general public can easily understand or accept. What confuses the issue even more is that the United States is experiencing several separate and different shifts in the manufacturing economy. One is the acceleration of the substitution of knowledge and capital for manual labor. Where we spoke of mechanization a few decades ago, we now speak of "robotization" or "automation". This is actually more a change in terminology than a change in reality. When Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in 1909, he cut the number of man — hours required to produce a motor car by some 80 percent in two or three years — far more than anyone expects to result from even the most complete robotization. But there is no doubt that we are facing a new, sharp acceleration in the replacement of manual workers by machines — that is, by the products of knowledge.
American politicians and labor leaders tend to dislike______.
选项 A、confusion in manufacturing economy
B、an increase in blue-collar work force
C、internal competition in manufacturing production
D、a drop in the blue-collar job opportunities
答案D
解析 细节推理题。根据题干关键词American politicians and labor leaders定位到原文尾段首句。首句中的conclusion就是政治家和工会领袖不喜欢的事情。因此答案可以定位于第三段，如果不减少工人的数量，发展得再快也是徒劳。而这必然会导致失业。所以American politicians and labor leaders当然不会喜欢。第三段首句中的sharply reduce the blue—collar work force与选项D对应。故答案为D。
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