I know it is always relative. I'm merely pointing out that there was never an absolute decline in manufacturing employment, which is a frequent argument in automation.
I often state that the entropy never vanishes and that implies that there can't be no general automation. Everything that gets automated creates more jobs.
And specifically here, not "other jobs" as is frequently stated. More manufacturing jobs first of all, for all the automation that has been adopted the number of manufacturing jobs on Earth has grown steadily for all of history.
Manufacturing jobs peaked in the US in 1978 at ~20 million, down to ~12 million currently.
Current manufacturing jobs in China are now ~85 million.