Workers are appearing at a rate of one per minute

When I assign workers to new buildings, other appear almost immediately keeping the total to 80

The increase in workers strangely stopped when I ran out of housing. But when I upgraded from level1 to 2 it started again.

I halted the absurd pop growth rate by setting the captains office edict. But this was completely out of control. I was putting some buildings down and I was almost out of workers, the next time I looked I had 80. The beacon was paused during this time.

You should report bugs here instead of commenting on the game process.

Oh, ok so my reporting this bug is the problem now? I got 80 workers out of thin air. So this is a "game process"?

What you describe is normal population growth: it stops when housing runs out, resumes after a housing upgrade, and stops with the edict in the Captain's office.