Ok, OP's argument was about workplace conditions, not low employment numbers, and they claimed that conditions stopped being good around 1980 with no evidence to back it up. We are at less than 4% unemployment so it's a very good thing we don't need 100x more workers to do things the way we did them 100 years ago.

I will say, I'm a 100% knowledge worker, and work from a laptop, but hard labor is good for you (within reason). We have all sorts of illnesses and obesity in modern society because our bodies were built for stamina that we no longer make use of.