Industry in the second sense became a key sector of production in European and North American countries during the Industrial Revolution, which upset previous mercantile and feudal economies through many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the development of steam engines, power looms, and advances in large scale steel and coal production. Industrial countries then assumed a capitalist economic policy. Railroads and steam-powered ships began speedily establishing links with previously unreachable world markets, enabling private companies to develop to then-unheard of size and wealth. Manufacturing is a wealth producing sector in an economy. Following the Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's economic output is derived from manufacturing industries more than agriculture's share.

According to some economists, manufacturing is a wealth producing sector of an economy, whereas a service sector tends to be wealth consuming. Emerging technologies have provided some new growth in advanced manufacturing employment opportunities in the Manufacturing Belt in the United States. Manufacturing provides important material support for national infrastructure and for national defense.