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Imports and exports have always been a large chunk of the economy. The only thing that has changed is the trade gap which started to really grow in the early 80's.
Manufacturing jobs didn't really start to go away until the late 90's/early 2000's but wages had been falling since the late 70's. They were also never a majority of the jobs.
Wages were higher not because of manufacturing jobs but because there used to be more effective representation of worker's rights (ie. labor unions) but those were largely knee capped in the 80's by Reagan and are only a shadow of what they once were. Once effective pursuit of worker's rights was eliminated businesses were free to begin massive outsourcing to enable global wage arbitrage efforts which is what has been reducing wages in the 80's and 90's.
Even professional jobs are being effected now which is why having a college degree isn't as effective as it once was at getting a good paying job.
Also note how in the graph that the US still produces lots of stuff. We're only 2nd behind China still and we only became 2nd a few years ago. The production of goods has become highly automated which has resulted in those jobs not just being sent overseas but flat out eliminated. Symbols processing has made leaps and bounds too so don't think its only manual labor being effected. Symbols processing is why many newer law school grads can't find work anymore. Less lawyers are now needed that much of the research which needed to be done by people can be automated.
It'll be interesting to see what happens as the automation continues to improve and gets cheaper. Once we have sustained ultra high unemployment (ie. 20-30%) things are going to get interesting.
