Offshoring Consumption

Cheap labour may no longer come to you. 

Rich western nations may be souring on immigration.

Longer term, the global supply of working-age people will shrink.

Services inflation outstrips goods inflation, particularly in areas which are hard to automate.

While highly-skilled migrants are slightly more palatable to voters, they are mis-matched to shortages in low-skilled, labour-intensive industries like child/aged care, construction, and maintenance. 

Where migrants are employed in rich countries, compliance costs erode savings. Corporate middlemen benefit from the low-wage labour supply, not the consumer, who experiences nothing to offset concerns about migration's downsides.

Aged care comparison:

• Australia: Atomised, subsidised home help. Recipient typically pays AUD$70 out of pocket for 30-45 minutes work. No continuity in carer, who may be different each session.
• Singapore: Live-in domestic helper. ~SGD$8K-9K p.a. From experience, availability and continuity are important, as continually re-explaining to different people introduces handover risk. $120 per month government grant.
• Philippines: Experienced Live-in caregiver ~USD$4500 p.a.

Immigration restrictions may widen those gaps as the flow from the developing-world's mountain of labour slows to a trickle. However, immigration policy is not symmetric. It may be easier for a rich person to move to a poor country than for a poor person to move to a rich one.

Border Control

To escape rising labour costs, made worse by a turning away from immigration, rich-world citizens may choose to migrate, mimicing multinational companies that offshore their inputs to cheaper countries. This is essentially the logic behind digital nomads who work from rented spaces in low-cost locales.

Climate change may support offshoring. While much is said about the developing world being the most vulnerable, that does not mean the developed world is immune. The typhoons that slam into the Philippines have strengthened, but unseasonal arctic blasts have also crippled the United States, while Australia suffers unpredictable flooding and bushfires.

Furthermore, developed countries may be less resilient to climate change as rising costs, rigid rules, and welfare-stretched budgets leave little room to fund remediation and mitigation. Following devastating floods, it may take six months to slap together a new house in Southeast Asia, whereas your insurance claim in Australia may take a year to assess. You don't know if climate change will trash your house, but if it does, it will cost you more to rebuild it in a rich country.

Maintaining roots in developed countries is increasingly costly and risky.

If importing labour can no longer offset that, perhaps exporting consumers can.

If the mountain will not go to Muhammad, then rather than bemoan the cost-of-mountain crisis, Muhammad must go to the mountain.