Every single one of those people has no education past secondary school - many only educated to GCSE level. [...] Why does that offend you so much?
It offends me because you're painting an inaccurate (and, frankly, unconvincing) view of the practicalities or and obstacles to non-EU emigration.
You're ignoring the difficulties of obtaining a visa, even when you're eligible for one.
You're ignoring the difficulties of living in a country where your legal rights are limited, compared to its citizens, and where your future status is never entirely secure (until you obtain citizenship, which is invariably difficult and sometimes impossible).
I've worked in Asia, Europe and America. The difference between working somewhere you must obtain specific permission to enter and visa sponsorship to remain and work, and somewhere you already have the legal right to live and work, is immense. The two are barely comparable. It's utterly misleading to act like one's just a bit more effort than the other, as several people have tried to explain. It's immaterial if you have a thousand friends working in non-EU countries: if you don't know their circumstances or experience, and get all coy when asked, then there's little point bringing them up.
If you took 100 people today, none of them educated past secondary school, the likelihood is that fewer than ten would stand any credible chance of obtaining a working visa for a non-EU, 1st-world country (excepting working-holiday type visas for temporary or manual work). And those ten would not be in a position to pick or choose: they'd be fortunate to find a country which is looking to hire immigrants for specialist skills.
But all of those 100 people would have the right to live and work in the EU.
All the time I've worked outside the EU, alongside non-EU citizens, the overwhelming response to the EU passport is you're so lucky. The amount of options that gives you. So many people would absolutely love to have this open to them, and, wherever possible, many of the Americans, Canadians, Australians etc I know have pursued ancestry claims in order to qualify for a EU passport. It's a huge advantage, and it's extremely grating to hear anyone through complacency, or lack of knowledge shrug it off as, meh, it won't make that much difference because you can always line up a job elsewhere.
Of the fifty people you claim to know, none of them educated past secondary school, I would be entirely unsurprised if this cohort didn't break down into the following groups: a) people who emigrated years ago, under completely different and far more relaxed visa regulations, b) people working with limited rights in a country in which they have no intention of staying (ie Saudi, UAE), c) people working in a country where they would not bring, let alone raise, their family (Iraq, Afganistan), d) people working for the military or on military-related projects and contracts, who have no choice in their destination and don't plan to remain long-term.
The people who have emigrated permanently to USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in recent years will have either paid thousands of pounds for this, including visa fees and associated costs of medical exams, police reports, qualification/skillset verification, and the costs of eventual naturalization. If they were sponsored by a company who met all these expenses, they will most likely have been tied to this company for a specific period, and their spouses/dependents may not have been eligible to work.
But you're not interested in this. It doesn't fit with the idea that losing EU working rights is a minor inconvenience which doesn't seriously restrict the employment opportunities of millions of people.