PORTLAND – Increasingly competitive global markets and the arrival of innovative technologies will drastically shift the base of Maine’s economy over the next decade, according to a labor report released Friday.

The Maine Department of Labor predicts that manufacturing industries will plunge from contributing nearly half to less than a quarter to the state’s economy. Such a change would lessen the manufacturing presence in Maine and pose potential problems for an aging work force struggling to adapt.

John Dorrer, director of labor market research for the state, said those changes put the state in the “crossfire of economic change,” where demographic and economic forces are ready to shape the direction of the state’s economy.

And the question then becomes one of ensuring economic livelihood, he said.

“If we are going to keep this economy moving forward, we’ve got to make sure that we have the numbers and the right set of skills,” Dorrer said. “If we don’t put the labor force on the field in numbers and skills that are required, we could very well undermine the prospects of economic growth.”

Gov. John Baldacci established the Workforce Cabinet in 2003 to discuss economic opportunities for Maine. The cabinet commissioned the report, titled “Trends and Implications for the Maine Workforce,” to develop a growth strategy by anticipating the state’s economic direction in the next decade.

The report found that the number of goods-producing jobs is expected to decline by about 8,700, or 8 percent, by 2012.

And to fill that void, the report suggests finding a place for aging workers in an economy moving away from their skills, focusing on the state’s newly established work force and seeking out emerging and growing markets for everyone.

Additional strategies for job growth include designating more areas as Pine Tree Zones, which offer tax incentives for new and expanding businesses.

If those strategies succeed, labor analysts predict an additional 68,000 jobs could be introduced by 2012. Some of those jobs will result in areas such as biomedical research, financial services and the growth of creative economies.

The idea of creative economies has roots in the theories of Richard Florida, an economist whose 2002 book “The Rise of the Creative Class” contends future economies will depend on creative industries.

In Maine, those businesses could be fine papermakers, artists, designers and cultural events and institutions that draw tourists and revenue.

Charles Colgan, an economist at the University of Southern Maine, said creative economies work. But rural cities that are isolated from urbanized areas would have to begin viewing themselves differently for it to work across Maine.