A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), authored by scholars Dani Rodrik and Rohan Sandhu, sheds light on employment trends in the developing world. The study suggests that the manufacturing sector generally generates minimal employment opportunities in these regions, while ‘new’ urban jobs are informal, unproductive, and mostly concentrated in the service sector. Their findings suggest that manufacturing is unlikely to absorb new entrants to the labour force or provide more productive jobs for those currently engaged in low-value service roles.