Eli5 is a manufacturing economy or service economy better for national economic growth
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That’s a complex question.
The thing with manufacturing is that you need raw material, which limit how much a manufacturing economy can growth. In service economy you just (mostly) need human labor, which just keep growing as your population growth (that said this is becoming an issue in some countries that don’t grow in population anymore). That’s one of the reason why most developed countries have between 50% and 80%+ of their economy being service industry.
At the same time, manufacturing jobs then to have better benefice and salary than non manufacturing jobs. But this advantage is getting smaller and smaller over time. The other big aspect of manufacturing is national safety. We saw the effects of this very well during the pandemic. The more your country is dependent on others for their manufacturing products, the worst position you are in when there is trouble. You are not at the top of the priority list if the product is manufactured in another country. We usually think of that especially for strategic resources like oil, steel, food, etc. But it’s also true of products that people use everyday.
So technically manufacturing is better, but it just can’t growth fast enough to keep your economy afloat, only services can grow fast enough since it’s by far less limited by natural ressources.
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