Indeed, you wander in the courtyard of your average assembly hall and you get the sense Chow Yun Fat is about to break out of the walls in a spectacularly choreographed fight scene.

BBC: Penang: Malaysia in miniature

Yet working conditions in services are often pleasanter and safer than on an assembly line, and average wages in the fastest-growing sectors, such as finance, professional and business services, education and health, are higher than in manufacturing.

ECONOMIST: Economics

In most high-tech fields today, the know-how needed to make a component, sub-assembly or finished product has progressed too far and too fast for the average worker to be able to propose any useful innovations.

ECONOMIST: The land of disappointments | The