CHANGES IN CONSUMER DEMAND
Since the 1950s, in developed economies there has been a secular shift in consumer demand from goods toward services. Some of the shift is due to satisfaction of basic material needs, and some is due to the aging of the population. To the extent that unions have been concentrated in manufacturing, construction, and mining industries, their relative employment has decreased. To the extent that employers are increasing the service side of their businesses, there is increasing resistance to the spread of unionization within the firm The range of skills required by changing consumer demands has increased. There are more jobs with both low and high skills than in the wages, and the return past. Low-skill jobs seldom command very high on investment from organizing them has usually been low. On the other end, increasing skill levels have moved a larger share of jobs into the professional arena- an area that unions generally have had a hard time organizing. Each of these factors has reduced the bargaining power of unions over the last 20 years