Do you know that Egyptian pyramids were built by the workforce primarily made up of farmers "recruited" from all Egypt, not slaves?...
And if we assume that they actually raised slaves, how they can be considered skilled if they, as you yourself say, weren't competitive? Nevertheless, we should take into account the level of industrial development of Ancient Egypt (or lack thereof) versus Europe after the 14th century (e.g. manufactories appearing in the early 18th century)...
Basically, you can't compare these skills
Slightly higher ranking slaves who call themselves something other than slaves are still slaves.
What you are really saying in your comparison of industrialized Europe versus ancient Egypt is that slavery is not compatible with our current level of technological progress. This is true. Slavery reduces freedom of choice and thus destroys knowledge. It must be eliminated if we wish to progress.
See:
Knowledge, Entropy and FreedomHowever, as iamnotback noted slavery is natural thus it has required thousands of years of struggle for us to partially overcome it.