That's less like actual history, and more like a retelling of it as some inevitable repeated story.
If by people, you mean the ones whose jobs/skills became deprecated, then yes, they didn't know where new jobs will come from, and tons of them didn't get new jobs anyway.
But the industrialists in general knew they will have needs for tons of workers in the new factories -- and in fact the government then (in England, etc) passed laws that made sure they "encouraged" (forced) millions of farmers and such to urbanize and become factory workers.
The difference is that now we know of no such need.
>Even right now, when software is eating the world, unemployment in the US is low and decreasing.
Mostly by cheating: counting tons of low quality, low pay, part time (not as a choice) jobs, not counting people who have worked in the past X months, not counting tons of people outside certain narrow criteria that still don't translate to actual jobs, etc :)
E.g.:
The unemployment rate dropped because people unable to find jobs ceased looking and are no longer counted as being in the labor force. If you are unemployed but not considered part of the labor force, you are not included when unemployment is measured. The BLS says that in May there were 1.7 million Americans who “wanted and were available for work,” but “were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.” In other words, the unemployment rate is a useless measure of unemployment, just as the consumer price index no longer measures inflation. What were once useful statistical measures have been converted into good news propaganda.
Even right now, when software is eating the world, unemployment in the US is low and decreasing. The disaster is a bit like that my new diet, it always is happening soon :)