It has been repeated many times that the traditional industrial working class in the West has been declining over the last decades. Nevertheless, it is still a substantial minority. On a world scale the traditional working class is actually growing.
What we see developing in Western Europe, North America, Australia and many parts of Asia, is the so called knowledge society, where cognitive and creative skills are becoming more and more important and where the old methods of the stick and the carrot do not work anymore. On the other hand, more and more work in the service sector becomes also routine-based and is exported to the countries of the underdeveloped world: certain kinds of accountancy, computer programming, etc.