Final answer:
The term for a society transitioning from manual labor to knowledge-based jobs is a postindustrial or information society, where the economy is driven by knowledge and services like software programming, rather than by industrial production.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term that describes a society where a significant portion of the labor force has transitioned from manual labor to jobs that are primarily knowledge-based is postindustrial society or an information society. In such societies, the economy is driven by knowledge and the ability to produce, store, and disseminate information, rather than by material goods. This shift has resulted in a labor force that is more likely to be employed in service industries such as software programming and business consulting, rather than in manufacturing or agriculture. Postindustrial societies are marked by a high valuation of information, and social classes are often divided by access to education, which is crucial for success in a knowledge-driven economy.
Historically, there has been a significant shift in the employment structure within these societies. For example, the rise of the information age in the latter part of the 20th century has led to the majority of the workforce moving into information sector jobs. Societies have evolved from agrarian to industrial and now to information-centric, which has drastically changed the makeup of the labor force and economic strategies of nations. Notable social theorists such as David Harvey and Frederic Jameson have indicated that this economic shift has also led to cultural changes from modernity to postmodernity.
Figures from LibreTexts highlight that by the beginning of the 21st century, the workforce composition in the United States had dramatically changed, with less than 2 percent in agriculture, 15 percent in industry, and the majority, about 65 percent, in information activities. The phenomenon of workers moving from active labor to service industries is a global trend. In the case of China, massive rural-to-urban migration has played a key role in its shift, leading to discussions about reaching the Lewis turning point, a stage when surplus agricultural labor is absorbed into the manufacturing sector leading to rising wages.