Although the structure of employment has changed substantially over the long-term course of economic development, a drop of the scale and speed as the one that has taken place in manufacturing among industrialised and high middle–income countries in the last decades constitute an unprecedented phenomenon. In the analysis I distinguish between four sources of de-industrialisation, and develop a new concept of the ‘Dutch-disease’. I also offer a new approach to the understanding of ‘premature’ de-industrialisation, a phenomenon that has characterised Latin America since the beginning of the neo-liberal economic and political reforms, and conclude that it contains important components of policy-induced ‘uncreative destruction’. Finally, I discuss how rapid de-industrialisation has reopened an age-old debate in economic theory: is a unit value added in manufacturing equal to one in commodities, finance or services, especially in terms of its growth-enhancing properties?