Civilization 4 - Game converting labourers to specialists

Question

In Civ 4 the game sometimes converts my labourers to specialists automatically as referred to in the CivFanatics FAQ - how can I stop it from doing this?

Why aren't all my citizens working? What do I have to do? If your city does not have the same amount of tiles being worked as its population, there are two possibilities: the first is that the game might have changed some of the laborers into specialists, so first check to see if you have any that you weren't aware of.

The FAQ just suggests changing them back - I was wondering if it is possible to stop the game tinkering with my labourers like this in the first place?

Answer 1

You can turn it on and off in the City Menu, it is a button with an icon of a computer screen next to a citizen, called Citizen Automation.

For the most part, you don't want to turn that off and keep the city all laborers, unless you are willing to do the micromanagement yourself and emphasize on certain production or if you're interested in making specialized cities -- http://guides.gamepressure.com/sidmeierscivilization4/guide.asp?ID=613

Besides, they can't be all laborers, coz as soon as the number of citizens becomes larger than the number of the city tiles, you are forced to have specialists; it's the only way the city's economy stays afloat, let alone its population.

Answer 2

Yes, it should be within your city options, I can't remember the exact name, I can check when I get home.

Something to do with manually managing your city's workers. In the bottom right hand side iirc.