How did factory work change the role of the laborer?

Before the advent of factories, people tended to work on a much smaller scale as artesans, producing goods from their homes, or small workshops that they established. During this time, life was easier in the sense that there was no presence of mass production, usually the one who worked in the workshop was the male of the family, and knowledge about a craft was passed down through generations.

However, as markets began to expand, and international trade also began to expand, the work of artesans became insufficient to fulfill the needs of the markets, because not even in groups could handcraft be ever fast enough to feed the demands of thousands of buyers, especially in Europe.

As such, the initiation of factories, buildings where manufacturing began to emerge as massified production of goods, thanks to the appearance of machinery, made handcraft almost obsolete, an expensive luxury, while mass production permitted lower prices and more supply of goods.

In the end, this completely upset the earlier role of laborers. Now, factories allowed massive groups of unskilled people to work at one specific task, and these people became specialized in working that specific task with specific machinery. Work started to become highly specialized.

But also, as demand for products grew further, the need for laborers increased. As such, men, women and even children started to leave the home to become engaged in factory work in order to produce more income  for their families.

In the end, factories produced groups of laborers that became highly specialized, and when the need arose, they also began to become preofessionalized.