The labor shortage in the UK is probably what stirred the industrial revolution, with the building of weaving machines and factories. Despite this, the UK keeps sending its people abroad, how come their people did not complain about the loss of cheap labor?
On the other hand, the Chinese Ming Dynasty likely put a stop to ship-building and ocean traveling, after many of its people settled abroad to places in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. However, the UK did not follow this isolationist policy, and instead, pursued markets and gave their disadvantaged or landless people greater potential abroad.
The industrial revolution was absolutely not spurred by a labour shortage, and in fact quite the opposite occurred. As industrialisation sped the decline of traditional cottage industries and rapid urbanisation led to a massive spike in population, unemployment and poverty became a major problem in the UK. Between 1700 and 1800, the population of Great Britain increased by 2,000,000. It had taken over 300 years for the population to grow by the same amount since the Black Death in the 14th Century. By 1900, the population had more than trippled to over 30,000,000 people.
The ONS only records unemployment statistics as far back as 1881, however parish records from the nineteenth century suggest that almost 2,000 workhouses housing unemployed urban poor were in operation across the UK by 1800. The earliest ONS statistics show that by the mid-1880s, unemployment in the UK was around 10% of the workforce, a which had risen since the start of the decade. The plight of the urban poor and unemployed became a particularly important political focus: Famous economist, philosopher and Liberal politician John Stuart Mill was a prominent campaigner for working class rights and womens rights in particular and was once arrested for campaigning for greater access to birth control, with the utilitarian motive that such rights would help to stem the spike in population growth among the urban poor.
If anything, therefore, Britain actually wasn't exporting enough of its population to its colonies.
Quinn, (2008), Mill on Poverty, Population and Poor Relief
Office of National Statistics figures on national employment available from: www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment