This is factually incorrect. Employment change in the United Kingdom averaged 39.74 Thousand from 1971 until 2022, reaching an all time high of 311.00 Thousand in March of 2014 and a record low of -424.00 Thousand in May of 2020, due to the pandemic.

The total employment rate of the UK in June of 2022 was 75.9%. Where are you pulling this "less than 50%" figure from? Your ass? Because it sure as hell isn't coming from the actual stats.

They were saying this about automation in the 1890s. And at the turn of the century. And in the 1910s. And the 1920s. And the 1930s. And the 1940s. Oh yeah, and the 1950s, and the 1960s, and the 1970s, and the 1980s, and the 1990s, and then at ANOTHER turn of the century. Then, we realized that this was just fear mongering. Oh wait, no we didn't, because we kept saying it in the 2010s and again in the 2020s.

Are we noticing a pattern here yet?

Literally ever decade has had the argument that the latest automation will eliminate jobs. And literally every time, this has been true, but new, different jobs that did not exist before took their place. Why do people watch history repeat over and over again, and somehow still convince themselves that THIS one is different. It is not.