I also agree -- post-industrial economies have gotten so efficient at the manufacturing that does occur (as well as agriculture) that most people are employed in fields that simply don't provide helpful skills if you roll the technology base back to 1900 (or earlier). There is, of course, the possibility of retraining people, but in T2K the big choke point is keeping them alive and organized at all after the TDM and subsequent winter eradicates food distribution networks.
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