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You are quite literally wrong about this. Looking at Canada, even the middle and upper classes are struggling, primarily because of a real estate bubble that is continously being inflated with a stream of as you would say "low-skilled" workers. Furthermore, wages in Canada are aenemic, partly because the bottom quartile drags compensation down. You are mistaken in assuming that changes in the "low-skilled" segment of the population do not propgate to the "higher-skilled" segment.
They're struggling because of anticonstruction nimbies. Their wages are anemic because they're unproductive lazy canadians. (\s a little bit but not really. I know the full explanation for the low wage growth is complex, but also canadian productivity growth is really not very high)
I can't rule out that immigration has an effect on high-skilled labor in general but I'm speaking for me, personally, as a software engineer. I personally am not threatened by immigration because my job is already perfectly globalized. If you actually want me to have an interest in supporting anti-immigration policies you're going to have to add "ban the use of foreign software" as a policy plank because otherwise its just a conspiracy to force me to pay more for lazy american carpenters while you all enjoy using cheap or free linux distros built partially by government-subsidized europeans.
The canadian construction sector is a greater proportion of its gdp than the US construction sector is. They are literally building as fast as possible.
Furthermore, the reason productivity growth is so bad is because of the complex interaction between the real eastate bubble and indian immigration. Why invest in capital when you can invest in the real state bubble? Why try to be more productive when you can import more low-wage low-skilled immigrants, who coincidentally also inflate the real estate bubble?
I can accept that your job is globalized. But everything else in your life isn't. Your house, your food, your health care, your social services, your assabiyah are all local; they aren't competing on a global level, with a global population. Your job might be fine despite it being globalized, but I can almost guarantee it that if everything else was globalized, you wouldn't enjoy it.
My food is imported from across the world, and I definitely don't want to pay a 25% tarriff on Columbian coffee because some Hawaiian producers wanted to rent-seek.
As for services-- if I concede that immigration depresses wages in the long run (and so far, I don't) then for that exact reason I want my services to be more global. I don't want a tyrranical government forcing me to pay more for american services.
Housing is the closest you get to a winning argument, but only in the short run. Cheap labor leads to more construction in the long run. And in particular, it leads to denser construction, and as someone that likes living in a city I view that as intrinsically desirable. Kowloon walled city WAS real neoliberalism and it was a GOOD THING.
I can understand all the americans making a cynical, oppressive power-grab by forcing me to buy their goods and services. That doesn't mean I have to like it-- and it definitely doesn't mean I have to shut up and take it like a good little paypig. I WILL use cryptocurrency to dodge tariffs. I WILL fly to latin america to buy over-the-counter drugs and get elective medical procedures done. I WILL hire illegal immigrants to get construction work done. (In minecraft.) And no lazy, blood-sucking protectionists are going to stop me.
By food i mean in general. Increased population leads to an increase in food demand, driving up prices.
We've reached a terminal end in values here. There's no point in arguing this further, since I consider Kowloon walled city (and situations like it) to be the closest thing to hell that humanity has voluntarily created.
The best nonviolent way to reduce global population is to get immigrants to move to countries with low-fertility norms.
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