That factory looked like it employed a lot of easily replaceable manual work. You don't have to replace 100% of workforce, replace just the ones whose work is

That factory looked like it employed a lot of easily replaceable manual work. You don't have to replace 100% of workforce, replace just the ones whose work is the easiest to do by a robot. Replacing 50% of workforce buys you enough time that by the time your available worker pool has shrunk 50%, robotics and AI will be much better and you will be able to replace another big chunk. Production-wise, shrinking demographics are not such a big deal (they still have a lot of youth unemployment). Shrinking demographics is a problem due to a) the ratio of workers vs seniors, b) shrinking overall demand pool -> shrinking economy c) smaller overall talent pool -> less diversity, less 'geniuses', i.e. the real drivers of innovation, and less capability to mobilize for great projects