They are smart to worry about automation replacing them. At some point, it will.

It's been several years now, but I read that off-shoring of jobs had almost disappeared, and that those "off-shored" jobs were being "on-shored" to be performed by automation. Because workers in Vietnam or Thailand were more expensive than filling buildings full of machines in the US.

Over the years, I've seen more jobs lost to automation. Which is why I favor establishing a minimum basic income now, while things are still pretty good, rather than waiting until 10% or more of the population is unemployable because they simply aren't needed in the face of automation (and now AI). I think it will be more difficult to set it up with that level of chaos going on (society would be roiling with people screaming about jobs and "feeding my family" and such). If we don't tear ourselves apart before then, I expect up to 50% of the population will be unemployable. There are very few jobs that can't be done by automation, and we don't need tens of millions of plumbers (one of the jobs I expect will never go away).